Book Review--Say When

I just finished a bok by Elizabeth Berg called Say When. Berg is the author of Open House, which was apparently an Oprah pick. I had read that one, and was willing to read another by her.

The story starts out fairly grimly--the first sentence is "Griffin knew his wife was having an affair" [as I recall it]. Within pages, his wife asks for a divorce, and Griffin is forced to admit that this was not something that would just blow over.

Ellen and Griffin have an eight year old daughter--Griffin has an office job, and Ellen is a stay at home mother. She assumes that Griffin will move out, in order to keep a stable environment for their daughter. Uncharacteristically, Griffin refuses to go. He does not want a divorce, and is unwilling to do anything to make it easy for Ellen to exit the marriage.

Interestingly, the book stays with Griffin and his processing of his marriage and the threat of divorce. Ellen does move out, although she comes back to the home regularly to care for their daughter. The narrative, however, stays firmly with Griffin.

At first, the book draws the reader into the vertiginous uncertainty of divorce--the way all one's assumptions about what is solid is changed. Griffin can no longer count on Ellen to do any of the things she ordinarily does, and he finds himself disappointed when he realizes that she will not be there at the end of his day, or next to him when he wakes in the morning. Each time he sees something he would like to share with her, he realizes what he is losing in divorce.

Soon, however, this book starts to cover much of the same territory as Anne Tyler's Accidental Tourist. The silent, reserved man is drawn out of his internal life by family crisis. There is a quirky job--Tyler's dog walker becomes Berg's shopping mall Santa. The affair falls apart, Griffin's attempt to date fails because he is still in love with his wife.

Berg has written a book of close observation of the rhythms of a disrupted life. However, I never felt the characters were given convincing histories--the book stays stubbornly lodged in the present, which limited my empathy with the characters.

All in all, a decent book, but my time would have been better spent rereading The Accidental Tourist.