This book starts off with an interesting scenario, that our protagonist, Alison, on a dark, rainy night after a party, having taken the wrong route home and now slightly lost, pulled out into a four way intersection,
the other car went through a stop sign, and she didn’t move out of the way
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– and the car rammed into hers, killing the 3 year old boy in that car who had been sitting on his mother’s lap in the front passenger seat. The police find her not guilty of the accident, but she is charged with DWI (Driving While Intoxicated/Impaired, known elsewhere as DUI or Driving under the Influence) as she is just slightly over the limit.
It is a more complicated scenario than it first appears. There are 4 key characters in this novel: Alison’s husband Charlie, Alison’s childhood best friend, Claire, married to Ben. Claire and Ben been dating since university and had adopted Charlie even then, as a 3rd wheel. They introduce him to Alison, and Charlie and Alison subsequently pair off. The two couples are close, until Alison and Claire have a work fall out, and are slightly estranged. Claire releases a novel drawn from her childhood days, and invites Alison, who is also in the publishing business, for the launch party in New York. Alison, now a suburban housewife with 2 young children, feels awkward, but her husband, Charlie, urges her to accept the invitation and to go, even though he is aware she has reservations.
Charlie is having a secret affair with Claire at this time, which makes him feel guilty towards Alison, but not more loving towards her. Charlie wanted Alison to have a good time and also some work events, which would lessen her dependence on him; but he himself does not attend the party because he is not comfortable being with Claire, Ben and Alison all at once, hence he was not there to drive, as he would normally have done. Claire had kept her distance from Alison at the party, so Ben makes up for it by being the affable host and pressing martinis on Alison, which was partly why she drank 2 and a half martinis, unlike her usual self. After the party, Ben suggests Alison stay for dinner, but Claire doesn’t like this idea, so Alison takes the hint and goes home, driving off into the night and into that fatal accident. To some extent, it seems everyone is slightly complicit in setting up the conditions for the accident. What happens subsequently is how the novel unfolds.
Kline’s observant eye for small details is typical of her writing style, and part of the charm of her novels. For instance, sharing an elevator with a woman going to the same party Alison was going to,
Out of the corner of her eye, Alison watched the woman compose herself. Like a preening bird, she made fine adjustments: she touched the back of her head, unfastened the buttons of her quilted silk jacket. She slipped a finger into the waistband of her skirt and smoothed it. Alison observed all of this with a benign curiosity. So this is how a woman prepares for a party, she thought; these are the small modulations that give her shape and identity.
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Kline also gives each character their background story, humanising each one.
However, although well written, the novel ends up being rather cliched in its themes of working woman turns into surburban housewife once the children come along, husband has an affair, her best friend who remained childless has launched successful career in New York….all rather threadbare, well-worn storylines. Kline tracks how a marriage typically unravels: Alison is feeling trapped in the
“bubble of middle-class suburban life” (p196)
but apparently so is Charlie, who says,
This is why I didn’t want to move out of the city. I feel trapped out here. I can’t do a fucking thing on my own without a permission slip.
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Alison finds her marriage is a façade, that
Charlie’s silence masked a fundamental disappointment – that she wasn’t interesting or exciting enough for him; that he thought he had “settled”. That he felt trapped in a maze of bourgeois concerns and aspirations, that he resented having to work so hard to maintain their way of life
p197
But then Alison
didn’t feel she had any right to articulate how powerless she sometimes felt as an unsalaried stay-at-home mother, how raising children essentially alone often felt like drudgery […]
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It is all rather Betty Freidan, 1970s white-middle class feminism.
That said, although the novel didn’t end as strongly as it started, it nevertheless was a very good read, beautifully told for most part, unfolding thoughtfully and even if predictably. The telling was skilfully done, the writing holds the attention effortlessly and pleasurably; it is just a pity the novel didn’t ultimately seem to have much to say which hadn’t been said many times before, or go anywhere in particular, for that matter. But it was still a very happy reading experience and I would still look forward to any future Kline novels.
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