Faber & Faber

This month’s featured reading group recently read and discussed The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer. Here, group member Lisa Seabourne talks about the group and tells us what they thought of the novel.

The Story of a Marriage
Reviewed by the American Women of Berkshire and Surrey Book Discussion Group's Lisa Seabourne

'We think we know the ones we love. We think we know them. We think we love them. But what we love turns over to be a poor translation, a translation we ourselves have made, from a language we barely know.'

So begins The Story of a Marriage, Andrew Sean Greer’s latest novel set in San Francisco in the 1950s.  But it isn’t the innocent era we immediately recognise - of Elvis Presley, sock hops, and poodle skirts.  Rather this is a time of McCarthyism, segregation, and a country living in the deep shadows of war. 

The reader is led through the novel by the soft-spoken Pearlie Cook, the adoring and attentive wife of Holland. She frets over her husband who she has been told has a 'crooked heart' and does everything possible to make his life calm and peaceful. Believing her war wounded husband is fragile and needs protecting, she purchases an alarm clock that purrs, a doorbell that 'cooed like a mourning dove', and a barkless dog. She even goes so far as to clip articles out of their daily newspaper before Holland reads it, lest they upset his delicate balance. 

The couple live their lives in claustrophobic isolation with their handicapped child. Until, that is, one day when Pearlie answers her front door to a man who turns out to be an old friend of her husband. 'Hello, ma’am, I hope you can help me.' With those ordinary words, Pearlie’s life changes. He offers her $100,000 in return for doing something for him. Although it’s not illegal, this is so important that he is willing to sell his family’s business and hand over the proceeds to Pearlie.

With a sense of foreboding and melancholy, the poignant story of the Cook’s marriage slowly emerges. As the opening page of the novel indicates, Greer explores the theme of marriage, love and relationships - and how well we truly know anybody, even those closest to us. The book also looks at wartime heroism and questions the definition of courage. And it examines how inaction can be more damaging than action. The Story of a Marriage is a highly discussable novel about three people trapped by the confines of their time. To describe the plot any further would be to cheat readers of the full impact of this poetic and elegant story and all of its surprising twists.

Greer possesses a magical talent for storytelling that challenges the reader’s assumptions. The Story of a Marriage is a slim book but one replete with rich, dense prose.  It has a languorous tone, but at the same time it’s a page-turner. And one of our members, a San Francisco native, found his descriptions 'achingly accurate'. As a group, we agreed that The Story of a Marriage would remain in our memories for a long time to come. We would highly recommend it others.

More thoughts from the group:

"I found myself close to tears with the elegance of the sentence construction; it was very strong and hinging on elegaic. It made me feel things I had never been able to put a name to and - for a California girl like me - the images were achingly accurate. Bravo!"

"The Story of a Marriage was poetic and even at times, profound. It took me longer to read, because I kept returning to re-read my favourite passages."

"A book that makes the reader challenge her assumptions - about herself, others, and recent history."

"One of the best novels I've read in years. I plan to recommend it to everyone I know who loves books."

"The Story of a Marriage surprises us with multiple, complex layers as we wipe away the tears."

About the Group

'Tell us a little about your group'

Our book discussion group is part of the American Women of Berkshire and Surrey, a club founded twenty-seven years ago by eight women living in the area. Today, the club numbers over 350. Although it consists mostly of North American citizens, about a quarter of our members are from the rest of the world - including the UK. Most of these have lived in the USA or have significant ties to the United States (husband works for an American company, they have American relatives, their children attend American schools etc.).

'How long you have been meeting and how regularly?'

There has been a book discussion group within the club for almost as long as there has been an AWBS. We meet between September and June on the third Monday of every month. Everyone brings a contribution for our meal afterwards. Once the book discussion is complete, we eat and chat about books.

'Do you meet at the same place each time?'

We gather at a different member’s home each month. In any one month, there are somewhere between twelve and eighteen members in attendance. However, there are just over thirty members of the AWBS Book Discussion Group. There is no obligation to attend every meeting; everyone is welcome to come whichever months they can.

'How do you get the conversation going?'

A different member each month volunteers to lead our discussion. First the leader gives a biography of the author, then stimulates the discussion by asking questions which have either been found on the Internet or devised by herself. Then at the end of the discussion, she reads us the critical reviews. And finally - and only at the very end - does she ask everyone whether they liked the book or not. I give the leaders some guidelines for researching and moderating the monthly discussions.

We have found in the past that if a book is critically acclaimed and these reviews are read at the beginning of the discussion, some people are reluctant to voice any alternative opinions. And a discussion can be doomed before it ever begins if the leader asks participants if they liked the book and receives a resounding ‘NO.’ Anyway, once the book has been discussed, people often change their opinions.

'How do you choose the books you discuss?'

Our group chooses its books through a selection committee - a group of four volunteers (which changes every year) who choose a shortlist of three books for each month, organised around a common theme.  Past themes have included: Death, Sisters, Living Under Oppressive Political Regimes, When a Man Loves a Woman, Children’s Books with Adult Themes, Englishmen Abroad, Immigrants, Straddling Two Cultures, and Time Travel. Once the committee has finalized their shortlist for the year, they write a précis for each of  the three monthly titles, and the larger group votes for their favourite. The novel with the most votes wins.

'Which books have provoked the best discussions?'

The Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
Quarantine by Jim Crace
Tortilla Curtain by T. C. Boyle
Watching the English by Kate Fox
We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
Blindness by Jose Saramego
Hey Nostradamus by Douglas Coupland
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Featured Groups Archive:

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Resistance by Owen Sheers

An Expert in Murder by Nicola Upson