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The Story of a Marriage: A Novel By Andrew Sean Greer ( Farrar, Straus and Giroux )
Release Date: 2008-04-29
Average Customer Rating:
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Product Description
From the bestselling author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a love story full of secrets and astonishments set in 1950s San Francisco “We think we know the ones we love.” So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship, how we can ever truly know another person. It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset district of San Francisco, caring not only for her husband’s fragile health but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep and everything changes. All the certainties by which Pearlie has lived are thrown into doubt. Does she know her husband at all? And what does the stranger want in return for his offer of $100,000? For six months in 1953, young Pearlie Cook struggles to understand the world around her, most especially her husband, Holland. Pearlie’s story is a meditation not only on love but also on the effects of war—with one war just over and another one in Korea coming to a close. Set in a climate of fear and repression—political, sexual, and racial— The Story of a Marriage portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it. Lyrical and surprising, The Story of a Marriage looks back at a period that we tend to misremember as one of innocence and simplicity. Like Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, Andrew Sean Greer’s novel is a narrative tour de force that confirms him as “one of the most talented writers around” (Michael Chabon).
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 banal
I could not finish this book. Characters were so underdeveloped as to be mere ciphers. But will someone please, please tell me where and when it became obvious that these were black people? Or were they? Or was just Pearlie black? I never picked up on that at all. Maybe it came at the end which I fortunately never reached.
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 wow!
Loved the book, not at all what I expected. Many twist and turns in the plot, which keeps the reader's interest.When you complete the novel, you will have much to think about!
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Plot and characters improbable ( phernhunt )
I agree with those who found this novel lacking in depth and content. The central thesis of the novel just doesn't hold: how can Pearlie believe Buzz, with his story about an affair he had with her husband Holland, and never even mention it to him? I kept thinking thoughout that the author was going to make it clear that Buzz was creating this 'story' for some other purpose...but he doesn't; nor does anything ever happen between him and Holland. Pearlie never once reflects on her thoughts or feelings about homosexuality, and this is 1953!...but she does believe that her husband loved antoher person...improbable! I can believe that she would not speak about homosexuality, but she would certainly think about it, and the author does not reveal that in any way. Unlike the fantastic film Far From Heaven, attitudes about homosexuality, race and gender, are not explored from the cultural context of San Francisco 1953. Instead, Pearlie ponders the life of Ethel Rosenberg, who was a person quite unlike Pearlie and her current life situation. I agree with the reader who noted that the author was unable to evoke a female, or black female character.
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 "We think we know the ones we love, and though we should not be surprised to find that we don't, it is heartbreaking nonetheless
The Story of a Marriage is a well-plotted novel about a relationship triangle, that of a woman, her husband, and his friend. The woman, Pearlie Ash, meets a childhood sweetheart named Holland Cook one day on a beach after WWII. In spite of discouragement from his aunts (who are actually his cousins), she chooses to marry him. Their son, Sonny, contracts polio at age three. Four years into their marriage, Buzz Drumer, a man who knew Holland during the war, shows up. Over time, he reveals details of his secretive past and his relationship with her husband. Thirty years later, two of the three reunite. Although there seemed to be a statistically high number of conscientious objectors (of which I am not a fan) in a story with so few characters and pages, that fact is overshadowed by the originality of the story. Author Andrew Sean Greer does a fabulous job at plotting, and especially in at his perfectly timed revelations.
Also good: The Three Junes by Julia Glass, The Hours by Michael Cunningham and Close Range by Annie Proulx.
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Unbelievably cliché ( luvs2_read )
It seems this story has polarized readers. Some love it, while others intensely dislike the book. I fall into the latter camp. I thought I was really going to like it initially, but then the story went way over the top into unbelievability for me. I found myself disliking it more and more as the pages progressed. It's really almost impossible to speak about the issues I had with the book without giving away some huge spoilers, but I will give you a taste of what it's about.
Holland and Pearlie Cook are childhood sweethearts with a son and a dog that doesn't bark. Everything is going along fine until one day Buzz, a man from Holland's past, shows up at the door and changes everything. Set in the 50's and San Francisco.
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