What readers think of The Most, plus links to write your own review.

Oh, the travails of marrying the wrong person.

It's an unseasonably warm and sunny day on Sunday, November 3, 1957 in Newark, Delaware. The Russians have launched Sputnik 2, and the news is buzzing with it. When Kathleen and Virgil Beckett awaken, she tells him she doesn't feel well enough to go to church but encourages him to take their sons, Nathaniel and Nicholas. After they leave, she receives two disconcerting phone calls—one from her cranky father-in-law who lives in California and one from a woman who asks for "Charlie" and won't leave her name. The family lives in a rundown apartment complex with a small pool in the center courtyard. Kathleen decides to take a swim, donning her old red swimsuit from college nine years ago. She takes a towel and a transistor radio, slips into the pool and stays there. Virgil and the boys come home. Virgil goes out to play golf with his work buddies. And Kathleen remains in the pool. It gets dark. She's still there.

That story is only the surface of this novella. The depth and real power of the book is under that surface as we learn Virgil and Kathleen's backstories, including their days as students at the University of Delaware. We find out their past joys and hurts, their previous loves, their infidelities, their most private thoughts, and their motivations. We find out they are both harboring some pretty big and potentially explosive secrets—secrets that could tear apart their marriage, which is already at the breaking point.

It's also an unsettling story of the so-called idyllic 1950s when dads went to work and moms stayed home and everyone was happy. Hmmm…maybe not everyone. Kathleen's dissatisfaction and disappointment with her life and the intense regrets she has of all she gave up when she became Mrs. Beckett are roiling her emotionally and psychologically. She's acting out in bizarre ways—and the daylong swim is only part of it. Still, she knows when she gets out of the pool, everything will go back to normal. And normal is no longer acceptable.

This compact but mighty novel takes place over eight hours. Rife with imagery of bridges that is simply masterful, this fierce little book is a real literary treasure.