Baby Got Books

The Story of a Marriage

As I’ve said before, and as I’m about to say again, Andrew Sean Greer is an incredible writer. His literary skills were in full force in both The Confessions of Max Tivoli and in The Path of Minor Planets, although his storytelling skills and his ability to develop characters were much more evident in the former.

Well, as fate would have it, I was recently in San Francisco for a conference, staying at the Westin St. Francis on Union Square, and I finished the book that I had brought with me. So, what’s a guy to do other than head over to the nearest bookstore and look for something else to read? I was trolling through the store when the thought struck me — “I wonder if Andrew Sean Greer has come out with anything new?” I went to the “G’s”, and low and behold, there it was — The Story of a Marriage. Hardcover. Ring me up.

When I bought the book, I hadn’t even thought about the fact that Greer lives in San Francisco and that it’s a favorite locale for his tales, and this one was no exception. And as I read, I found it spooky and eerily coincidental that I was reading about many of the places I came across while I was there — Fillmore, Van Ness, Union Square, etc.

Anyway, back to our story. This book is about Pearlie Cook and her marriage to Holland Cook, both of whom hailed from the same small town in Kentucky, and whose times together when they were in Kentucky, as well as when they met again later in San Francisco, led them to be married. I won’t get into too much detail of the story, other than to say that a “mysterious stranger” appears and changes everything. Everything that happens, everything that everyone thinks about everything that’s happening, and everything that everyone thinks about everything that’s already happened.

Again, Greer is an absolute master at painting scenes with words and using metaphor to convey deep insights about the human condition. This is another one of those posts where I feel like I could quote the whole book. And the fact that I could quote the whole book makes me not want to quote any of it; I just want to tell you to read it, and to prepare yourself to be astonished at Greer’s gift not only for prose, but for crafting a deeply moving tale.