Barbara N

Ever since reading "The Blindfold," I’ve been fascinated by Siri Hustvedt and the fictional worlds she creates—always cerebral, haunting, and engaging. Her new novel is no exception. Hustvedt’s intelligence and extensive learning are on display as she tells the story of Mia, a 55 year-old-woman forced into her summer without men by her husband’s request for a “pause” in their marriage.

Narrated by Mia in a direct address to the reader, the novel hearkens back to the world of Jane Austen as it explores contemporary—even postmodernist—concerns about what it means to be female at any age.

At times I found Mia's reaction to her marital woes over the top. Ultimately, however, I was moved by her (and Hustvedt's) empathy for the struggles that women go through—whether they are awkward adolescents, young wives caught in bad marriages, or elderly women coming to terms with the "bitterness" of old age.