Morality Tale
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
You’ve been married for several years. Long enough, certainly, for the rosy glow of your first love to have faded, dulled by the routine and reality of everyday life – including, in your particular case, his vitriolic ex-wife and two cute but time-intensive stepsons.
Then, one day, you meet him. The man of your dreams. (Or, at least, he will be from now on.) You weren’t expecting it, but you look at him, he looks at you, and it’s there: that spark of attraction, understanding, whatever you call it. (And certainly, you call it something different from your husband, when he finds out.)
The real question, though, is not so much what you call it but what you do about it . . .
'Brownrigg has perfect pitch, and she sees with amazing depth and tenderness into the hearts of her real-as-real characters – and into the reader's heart too' Michael Chabon
‘In this slim, devastating novel, the marvelously talented Sylvia Brownrigg tells us more about the emotional politics of modern marriage – and divorce – than I can remember reading in a long time. It's a bulletin from the front lines: timely, true, and at its heart surprisingly tender’ Ann Packer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pan, the curiously nicknamed narrator of Brownrigg's (The Delivery Room) trim latest, has come to realize the truth in the old saying, "What goes around comes around." It's been five years since her husband, Alan, left his wife for her, and she's disenchanted that their married lovemaking isn't as passionate as their adulterous action was. Plus, Alan barely helps around the house, Pan's not exactly enamored of her stepsons, and Alan is still hopelessly entangled with his combative ex, Theresa. So when Richard, a kindhearted envelope salesman, walks into the stationery store where Pan clerks, a harmless one-sided romance blooms in the form of letters Richard leaves for her. Of course, when Alan finds Richard's letters, he's less than understanding. The early charms of this novel, including an absorbing rendering of a suffocating and dreary marriage, soon wear thin: Pan becomes increasingly precious as an episode from her past is clumsily offered as an explanation for her disaffection, and her obtuseness about her meanness toward Theresa is frustrating. The setup is there, but the follow-through doesn't deliver.
