BookBrowse Reviews The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer

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From the bestselling author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a love story full of secrets and astonishments set in 1950s San Francisco

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"... a lover exists only in fragments, a dozen or so if the romance is new, a thousand if we've married him, and out of those fragments our heart constructs an entire person. What we each create, since whatever is missing is filled in by our imagination, is the person we wish him to be. The less we know him, of course, the more we love him. And that's why we always remember that first rapturous night when he was a stranger, and why this rapture returns only when he is dead."

For Pearlie Cook, as for many women of the 1950s, her marriage is everything. It's how she orients herself to the world, the filter through which everything passes, her purpose and her pride. When Buzz, an old friend from her husband's past, walks into their life, he reveals secrets beyond Pearlie's wildest imaginings, turning her world upside-down and blotting out her North Star. Completely unmoored but still in love with the man she thought she knew, she struggles out the next six months in isolation with her feelings and ruminations, aching to understand, to escape, to reason, and to reconcile herself with a new version of her marriage, a reinvention of her life for herself and her child. As Pearlie reveals the little side-stories of their marriage, the seeds of their relationship and the stories she told herself to make it grow, she tugs at ideas about how much her life and her marriage are comprised of a series of stories and assumptions, things she has possibly invented to fulfill her desires. But despite its contemplative, intimate qualities, The Story of a Marriage is also an emotionally and dramatically suspenseful page-turner, one that inspires open-mouthed revelations and causes us to question our own assumptions as Pearlie questions hers. In a way, you can read this book as a fable about a marriage drawn out to some of its most difficult conclusions, an allegory for any married pair and the great mystery that looms between them, and an eye-opening antidote to the fairy tales that reinforce our collective vision of the 1950s as a more innocent time.

Some readers may find the plot a tad dramatic or even implausible, but Andrew Sean Greer shapes Pearlie Cook's voice so vividly that I couldn't help but believe her. Greer's prose is so gorgeous that the whole novel is worth reading (and re-reading) for its beauty alone. In brief, evocative metaphors ("[his aunts] arranged themselves in his life like cats unhelpfully placing themselves in the fold of an unmade bed") and Perlie's longer, almost philosophical musings on the nature of love and marriage, Greer's talents as a wordsmith and a careful observer elicit beauty from a painful, difficult story. Greer's prose acts as an interesting counterpoint to the suspenseful plot, a lush slowness imposed on a swift dramatic arc, and its exactly what gives The Story of a Marriage its deep resonance and legs.

With prose so fine it demands slow savoring, and a plot so intriguing it demands breathless page-turning, The Story of a Marriage also serves as a gorgeous meditation on romantic partnership, the great mystery of knowing another, and what knowing someone really means. It's a novel that invites open-ended pondering, reconstructed theories, a-ha!-moments, and meaty discussions. Just when you think you've figured it out, out pops another brilliant star or passing cloud to alter the constellation. Which is, come to think of it, kind of like a marriage.

This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in June 2008, and has been updated for the April 2009 edition. Click here to go to this issue.