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Kathryn
Lyons, a pilot's wife, gets to know at 3:30 in the morning that
her husband's plane exploded off the coast of Ireland. All
passengers are dead including Jack. After this devastating news
she finds more and more evidence that Jack might not have been the
person she always thought him to be in their 15 years of marriage.
Kathryn is about to explore her husband's secret life that leads
her to London.
Outwardly,
this book does not make the impression of a spectacular reading
exerperience since the story sounds more or less like a womens'
drama written for wives left by their husbands. And after having
read the synopsis on the backside of the book I expected just
that, an unspectacular womens' novel with lots of tears and drama.
However, there are not many books that keep me up until two
o'clock in the morning holding my breath with every new
information Kathryn finds. The novel is incredibly well written
since Anita Shreve has the gift of letting the reader look through
her protagonist's eyes. The reader is kept in the same trap as the
pilot's wife wishing and hoping that it all will turn out well.
But it doesn't. Right after the news that her husband has died a
new information rocks Kathryn's life. Experts claim that the pilot
comitted suicide taking 104 innocent people with him into death.
This news are almost unbearable not just for Kathryn and her
daughter but for the reader as well. Because Anita Shreve takes
her audience back and forth letting them experience old memories
from Jack and Kathryn showing that they actually were a happy and
ordinary couple. These recalls let the reader develop some kind of
liking, especially for Kathryn and family but for Jack as well.
This affection for Jack makes this whole novel so controversy. On
the one hand the reader wants to dislike the husband who's
deceived his wife in some way or other, on the other hand the
memories that Kathryn recalls make him seem to be the best and
loving husband and father. However, in order to protect Kathryn
from the now alerted news reporters that are just on the hunt for
a good headline, the pilots' union sends a man to support her.
Together they slowly find out that Jack has known and maybe has
had an affair with an English flight attendant. Step by step the
reader follows Kathryn's way through pain and hurt ending after an
undeniable urge for thruth right at the door of Jack's supposed
lover. Skilfully the author builds up this tension since the
reader has suspected such a meeting right from the very first
page. Now that the moment is there and Kathryn ringing the bell
Anita Shreve let's her readers go through all emotions making them
desperately wish for it all being a terrible misunderstanding. But
it isn't, and in fact it turns out even worse. Worse than anyone
would have suspected turning this novel into a sursprising book
which is highly emotional. But not in a sense of sloppiness because the
protagonist stays constantly under shock and therefore is hardly
able to express her feelings. But since Kathryn is not able to
feel her anger and fury about her husband's lies the author
creates an atmosphere where the reader is forced to do so instead
of her.
Anita
Shreve's book is easy-reading since her writing style is
uncomplicated and therefore a very good choice for an
after-work-read. This easiness makes the novel so comfortable,
pages fly and fly by. This undemanding style of her's makes the story
become so natural and lifelike taking one into the world of
Shreve's characters.
Again
this novel is highly brilliant raising the question, how well can
we ever really know a person? The author leaves doubts and anxiety
behind. Since the novel is so realistically written how can one be
sure that it'll stay fiction and that not a similar story might
pop up one day in one's own life?
-- by Moni,
host of this page
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