Second Chance Romance

Rowell is known as a children and/or YA writer, and indeed, I had enjoyed some of her books for young adults, such as Landline, Eleanor and Park, and Fangirl. Rowell’s gift for invoking the awkwardness and exploratory, experimental time of teenagehood comes to the fore again in Slow Dance, where high school best friends, Shiloh and Cary meet after a 14 year hiatus from each other, at another super-close friend’s wedding. Mikey is on his 2nd marriage, to Janine, also a girl who was in their school. It feels as though Omaha, which is where Shiloh lives and where the novel is set, is a world unto itself, a bubble where everyone knows everyone and is connected through school, in particular.

When the novel starts, we meet the grown up Shiloh first, the 33 year old divorcee with 2 young children (Juniper, 6, and Gus, 3) who has just moved back into her mother’s house. Shiloh comes across as a rather pathetic character at first, not just because she can’t even find an appropriate dress which fits, but because from page 2, we are told

“she’d made a series of serious mistakes and miscalculations” (p2)

that she had built her life poorly, that she was someone who had failed to understand both herself as well as how things work: she had prided herself on her ability to make decisions,

“She’d thought she was going at making decisions because she liked making them. […] If Shiloh could talk to her teenaged self now, she’d point out that deciding wasn’t any good if you weren’t deciding correctly – or even in the neighbourhood of correctly” (p2).

But Rowell’s gift at reeling the reader in quickly shows us how complex a character Shiloh is. She is anything but peaceful and tranquil, as her name means. She had a uncannily close relationship with Cary all through high school, where she was not dating him – and indeed, he had a girlfriend for 3 months, while Shiloh thought she had a crush on a volleyball player called Kurt – but she treated Cary like an extension of herself. She was tactile, and always ‘messing’ with Cary, touching him, poking him, pulling at his clothes, hair, prodding him metaphorically and literally. Cary just allowed it, and is so used to Shiloh that he is comfortable with her whatever she does. And likewise, Shiloh accepts Cary unconditionally and unquestioningly, even though he is in the ROTC and she is anti-all things to do with war. (I had to look up what this meant, as Rowell seems to assume it is universal knowledge, it turns out ROTC is Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). However, in context, it was clear enough it was some kind of youth training because Cary’s desire from his school days was always to join the Navy.

Shiloh is a contradiction – she is anti-social in the sense of not liking most people, not enjoying parties, not mingling, not dating anyone except Ryan (which was a mistake!); but she is certainly not shy, and was editor of their high school magazine, she acted in plays in lead roles, she even as an adult, works in children’s theatre. She loves Cary but seems unable to claim him, even when he is offering. Shiloh cares little about other people’s opinions and seems very confident, but seems unable to love or esteem herself much. Only Cary really seems to understand and appreciate her for all she is; but somewhere along the way, they both misunderstood each other terribly. After a summer of boot camp, after he graduated and before he was assigned, Cary drops in at Shiloh’s college to visit her, and despite finally becoming lovers, despite declaring their love for each other, they part without any plans to meet again let alone enter a relationship. 14 years later, when Cary comes home to Omaha to care for his mother and gets together with Shiloh, they talk about that weekend of being lovers, and both accuse each other of failing to have made themselves clear.  Cary says,

“I should have said…’ His words sounded carefully measured. He was staring at his lap. “‘Shiloh, I think that we’re meant to be together. I know you don’t want me to join the Navy and that this isn’t the life you want for yourself. But I’m still yours, if you’ll have me’” (p156)

Shiloh in turn tells him

“I would have said – ‘Cary, I’m in love with you and I’m so scared to lose you. I don’t know where I fit in your life. I’m yours for the taking, but…I don’t think you’ll ever take me’” (p157)

And even after this, they still don’t get together.

Shiloh thinks

“No. even if she’d gotten it right at nineteen, she would have fucked it up at some other point in the timeline. Shiloh had no confidence in her ability to hold on to someone else’s heart” (p157).

It is a testimony to Rowell’s storytelling abilities that although both Cary and Shiloh declare their love for each other early on in the novel and in their lives, they can still manage to be start crossed lovers for such a long period in their lives, and in the story! Just why these two people who are crazy about each other, and know it, and have let each other know it too, cannot get together yet, keeps the reader turning the pages. Rowell is known as a young adults writer, and indeed, her novel about the mid-30s Cary and Shiloh still harks back a lot to their school days, and the author invokes the parts of her characters which have not fundamentally changed from their teenaged selves even though slightly buried under adult experiences and responsibilities. Shiloh may be a mother now, but she loves Cary with the abandonment and totality of a 18 year old, which is its own charm. So a good read overall, and I am off to find other Rowell books to enjoy!

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