"We think we know the ones we love," author Andrew Sean Greer says throughout this novel, but the characters and the reader soon discover that there are huge gaps in our knowledge even of those we love most dearly. Pearlie Ash meets her first love, Holland Cook, when they are teenagers in Kentucky during World War II. Time and distance separate them for a few years, and then, miraculously, they meet unexpectedly in San Francisco in 1949. Within days they are married. Soon after, they have a child. Settling in the Sunset district outside San Francisco, they lead a quiet life, enjoying their child and their relationship. Pearlie is particularly solicitous of Holland because he has "bad blood" and "a crooked heart."

Then, in 1953, a stranger arrives at their door, looking for Holland whom he knew in the war. For the next six months, Charles "Buzz" Drumer, the wealthy "stranger," is a guest almost every night, but Pearlie is stunned when he privately offers her $100,000 to help him to accomplish something important. As she considers Drumer's offer and what the money would mean for her future, the foundation of her marriage becomes shaky.

(No spoilers.) Greer has so meticulously plotted a series of ensuing surprises that the reader is kept off balance for the entire novel. Playing on the reader's assumptions about characters and plot as the story unfolds, Greer systematically destroys all the reader's expectations, turns perceptions inside out, and keeps the dramatic tension increasing until the resolution. Pearlie becomes a character we care about, a woman who wants only the best for her family but who is not always certain how to ensure that happiness.

As Pearlie, Holland, and Buzz tell their stories, the reader becomes privy to their hopes and dreams, and their fears and sorrows, many of them related to World War II and the Korean conflict. This is also the time of the Rosenberg trial, and Pearlie sees in Ethel Rosenberg a woman whose love for her husband will not allow her to betray him, even at the cost of her own life. Air raid drills and preparations for nuclear disaster become as symbolic as the Rosenbergs' trial in the story of this marriage, and Pearlie, like the mute dog who belongs to her son, is helpless to defend herself from danger. Careful plotting is enhanced by smooth prose, with not a word out of place, and Greer's thoughtful observations about the nature of love and marriage add depth and gravity to a novel which some might otherwise call a "tour de force" because of its clever structure. Innovative and great fun to read. n Mary Whipple

The Confessions of Max Tivoli: A Novel
The Path of Minor Planets: A Novel
How It Was for Me: Stories
Biography - Greer, Andrew Sean (1970-): An article from: Contemporary Authors Online

Ever since The Stern Librarian read Andrew Sean Greer's last novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli (which appears on my Amazon list of 10 favorite novels), I have been haunted by the question of whether Greer exalts or despises love. The Story of a Marriage is the perfect coda to that earlier novel's proposition that everyone is the great love of someone's life--alas, that great love is rarely mutual. After reading his new novel, I am convinced that Greer is our greatest poet of love. This turns out to also be a book about war and race as well, but it is most powerful and moving in exploring the triangle of affections among Pearlie, Holland and Buzz. The image of the Golden Gate Bridge on the cover reminds me of the poster for a Douglas Sirk melodrama, and Greer evokes both the quaint, Mildred Pierce-ish feeling of 50's northern California, as well as the fog that intrudes from three wars: World War II, the Korean War and The Civil War. What is most remarkable is the way that Greer's repeated use of the words hope and change evokes our current political climate. The book's description of segregation is offhand yet absolutely crucial to the story he tells and the choices Pearlie makes. In this novel, there is no question that Greer feels reciprocal love is possible, even if the 50's was too soon for all kinds of marriage. The Stern Librarian (I am the great love of my Patrons' lives).

Greer, Andrew Sean. "The Story of a Marriage", Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2008.

Knowing the Ones We Love

Amos Lassen

Andrew Greer has the ability to tell a fascinating story based on an interesting idea. "The Story of a Marriage" is full of revelations throughout the novel and I found myself going backwards looking for hints that I might have missed. But this was no problem for me because Greer's prose and style are so beautiful that it is a pleasure to read it again and again.
The story is set in San Francisco in 1953 and Pearlie tells how she came to marry Holland Cook, the guy who had been her childhood sweetheart. A couple as teenagers, they drifted apart and then reunite some years later, get married and have a son. Buzz Drummer, Holland's former boss and lover also reappears in their lives and this moves them into a new kind of relationship which causes them to make agonizing decisions.
San Francisco is the ideal setting for the novel as the story deals with both sexual and racial issues and the city at that time was in a climate of both fear and repression.
Pearlie is an unforgettable character who exudes personality, restraint and beauty. She is forced to exist when the country was experiencing class, racial and sexual strife and is made to find her place at a time when it was not easy to do so.
Greer's book is an emotion filled look at a time in our history when he were dealing with major issues--war, racial tension, sexual identification, the meaning of sacrifice, motherhood. But above all else, the theme here is love and Greer looks at the mysteries of it and the effect it has on others. When Pearlie realizes that all of which she thought was certain is threatened, she realizes that she hardly knows the man she married. Pearlie, over the time period of six months, struggles with trying to understand the world in which she lives as well as attempting to come to terms with her husband. Holland. Her story is not only a study of love but a look at the effects of war on her and the world.
It is interesting that when I think of the decades of the 50's, I characterize it as being a period of innocence and simplicity. I learn here that my thoughts are a bit incorrect and that the 50's were a period of great tension. Greer, in poetic language, gives us love but blends it with race and war and he is powerful as he explores Pearlie and her affections. Greer writes of her hopes and her choices.
Looking at love, we learn through the three characters in the novel that there are tremendous gaps between what we know and who we love.
I loved the feeling of surprise in the novel. My expectations were changed if not destroyed as I read, ideas were thrown out and tension constantly built until the conclusion. As the stories are told by the three characters, we enter the worlds of their hopes and their dreams as well as their fears and sadnesses. Greer carefully plotted his novel and his writing is sublime but it is his observations on love that make this book the beautiful read that it is.