It’s a familiar plotline, the ‘what if?’ The exploration of
a story of parallel life courses that evolved from an original singular course
at one particular point in time because of a crucial ‘life-changing’ decision.
Lionel Shriver has once again written a book I hated but
couldn’t put down. Well, actually towards the end I almost did put it down, but
thought no, I’ve come this far, must push on. I don’t necessarily feel that
reading this book a waste of my time, but I am glad I’ve finished it. The
characters, in usual Shriver style, are horrible and completely unlikeable. I’ve
read reviews that call her characters ‘complicated’. Yep, fair enough, but why
do they also have to be so horrible? This will most likely be the last of
Shriver’s book I read.
Irina McGovern is an American woman in her early 40s living
in London with her partner Lawrence, who is also American and in his 40s. Their
relationship is one of comfortable stability. They’ve been together for 10
years and have their daily routine down pat. Lawrence goes out to work in the
mornings in his job as terrorism research analyst (or something like that) and
Irina stays home to work on children’s book illustrations. When Lawrence comes
home they have a bowl of popcorn and watch tv. Then Irina cooks dinner and they
eat together, while watching tv. Then they go to bed and sometimes have sex
(about 3 or 4 times a week apparently). The sex, by the sounds of it, is
dreadful. They have got into a pattern where they have sex the same way every
time—from behind, in bed, in the dark. (Sorry for the gory details, but sex is a pretty major focus in this book...) For Irina, this is a source of sadness
because they never look into each other’s eyes while making love. But she also
seems to be happy with it because it’s regular and it’s happening (there’s that
‘complicated character’ for ya). To make things worse they don’t kiss. Lawrence
hasn’t kissed Irina on her lips for years and when Irina attempted, Lawrence
balked. Now this is a little unbelievable. It’s fucked up. I can’t actually
believe relationships like this exist. But there’s a reason this sounds so
dire. It’s so her relationship with Ramsey (the parallel plot) can be written
in the other extreme (heaps of hot sex and mouth kissing and passionate
arguments that end in more hot sex blah blah blah). And this is one of the
major flaws of this book. The differences between the parallel worlds are
delivered to us in earth movers and dumped heavily and loudly at our feet.
There is no nuance or sensitivity in this. Shriver delivers her message with as
much sensitivity as a sledgehammer.
Ramsey Acton is the husband of Jude, who writes the books
that Irina illustrates. He is also a champion snooker player (weird choice, and
the snooker analogies get very tired, very quickly). Every year the four of
them celebrate Ramsey’s birthday together. This is the only time they meet.
Again, weird and implausible. After Ramsey and Jude split up and Irina and Jude
have a falling out Lawrence and Irina get into a habit of celebrating Ramsey’s
birthday just the three of them. On the third year, Lawrence is out of town on
Ramsey’s birthday so Irina and Ramsey celebrate on their own. This is the
moment when Irina takes or doesn’t take that step that will change the course
of her life.
So from here on, each chapter is told in parallel. I liked
this structure—it kept me wanting to know what happened next and what was happening
in the ‘other reality’. But the realities were crafted in a way that was quite
predicable. If something happened in one plot, the near opposite would happen
in the other plot. This was boring and unimaginative and had me rolling my eyes
in some parts: “Lionel, do you really think we need to be spoon fed?”
The 9.11 theme was pointless and cheap. The Cookbook
Collector, which I have also reviewed, took the same cheap shot and as a result
lost even more worth in my eyes. Tacking on 9.11 to the story for no good
reason just reeks of greedy and lazy opportunism. It added nothing to the story
and was actually pretty self-indulgent I thought.
Having said all this, I actually finished the book, so there
must have been some redeeming qualities. The thing is, I can’t put my finger on
what they were. I did feel I was getting progressively dumber with each page –
maybe I needed to give my brain a rest and I read it at just the right time!
