Apparently, Anita Shreve (or her editor) likes generic titles. Last year, I read her Light on Snow. Now A Wedding in December. Let’s see – The Last Time They Met, All He Ever Wanted, Where or When, Resistance. The only one with a title I can get interested in is The Weight of Water (which was made into a Sean Penn movie).
You can’t always judge a book by its title. I found Light on Snow - told from a 12-year-old’s point of view - charming and touching.
But in the case of A Wedding in December, the title fits - both as a plain-jane description of the plot and a sign that nothing terribly exciting is on its way.
The novel brings together seven high school friends, who went their separate ways after an eighth friend’s tragic death. They meet at Nora’s inn in Massachusetts for the wedding of Bill and Bridget, who were high school sweethearts but broke up in college and married others. They are only now, 22 years later, reuniting.
The story rotates point of view among three characters – Bridget, the bride, who may be dying of breast cancer; Agnes, a schoolteacher who harbors a secret sadness and is writing a fictional account of a large-scale tragedy; and Harrison, who has fought with guilt and regret since high school.
The story is about regret and the role our choices play in it. Each of the three main characters changes direction over the course of the weekend, but nothing that happens surprises. Nothing that is revealed surprises.
This is not to say the book is bad. The characters are appealing, the writing clean, the emotions true. And I loved the forays into Agnes’ historical fiction short story, though I often wondered why Shreve didn't just devote a whole novel to it instead of interrupting this one at intervals.
I expect a certain amount of roller coaster in a book – highs and lows and in-between. A Wedding in December travels at an ambling pace, a stroll. It has highs and lows, but they’re so subtle that they’re more like shallows and gentle rises in the road than any roller coaster.
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4 comments:
I'm glad to hear this warning. I keep having Anita Shreve recommended to me; now I won't feel so obliged to check her out very quickly.
I'm listening now to Motherless Brooklyn, by Jonathan Lethem, read by Frank Muller. (I know it's not a new one, but I get mine from the library.) It's about a sort-of detective with Tourette's Syndrome, which is a really refreshing twist on the genre. I might be tempted to actually read it sometime, because I keep losing track of what's going on, but the Tourette's thing is pretty interesting, and Muller does most of the voices very well.
Hey Joan, can you e-mail me? kristin (at) 1902victorian.com
Hi Kristin--I did, but in case it got stuck in your spam filter, I'm at jauclairATsnet.net.
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