Book of the Week: Husband and Wife

It seems like all I've been hearing about lately is people cheating on one another. Maybe its all the adultery stories that have cropped up in the media lately (Tiger Woods, Jesse James, et. al.) that makes the issue seem more prevalent that ever. Either way when I received a copy of Husband and Wife by Leah Stewart--a novel about a wife and mother discovering that her husband's novel, aptly titled Infidelity, isn't all fiction--it seemed a timely story. For some reason I was expecting a kind of "hell hath no fury" revenge tale, but that's not what this novel is about.

"He said, 'I cheated on you.' 'What?' I said, because knowing is different from believing. And then, 'We have to go to a wedding.' That seemed to be relevant at the time.

                                    

And there you have it--the beginning of the end, as people like to say, as though there were such a thing, as though the beginning and the beginning of the end weren't one and the same." [p 7] 

Sarah and Nathan are in their thirties and have two children. Their youthful romance and dreams has given way to parenthood and adult responsibilities, at least in Sarah's case. While Nathan works on his novels Sarah, once a poet, has gotten a "real" job to support the family. It is only later that we find out Nathan actually resents the fact that Sarah has morphed into a conventional adult. My heart went out to Sarah at this point, because you see it a lot in relationships. A woman is put down for being too controlling or a nag, but if her partner refuses to grow up or take responsibility himself what choice does she have?

"Someday I'll look back and thirty-five will seem much younger than it does now. I don't feel old, exactly, though I do, at times, feel weary. But in the last couple of years I've begun to experience the signs of impending age. The stray white hair and the inability to drink more than two beers without a hangover...And, most disturbingly the dawning conviction that such infirmities will only increase in number." [p 4] 

So right before a friend's wedding Nathan unloads with the story of his infidelity and Sarah is left to determine what is best for her and her family. Do you stay or do you go? If you make a go of being a single parent will life be easier, happier? What, exactly, has happened to your life, to you and your dreams? These are the questions Sarah struggles with. I found her an easily relatable protagonist including one bit when she's ruminating on her temper:

"The incident confirmed what I already knew--it wasn't safe for me to get angry. Nathan used to say I had two cruising speeds. I was Princess Pliable or I was Queen Demented Rage...Queen Demented Rage--only Nathan knew her. I never fought with anybody else. For a long time he saw that as a sign of the health and openess of our relationship, and then he started to see it as a sign that I managed to hold back the worst of myself from everyone but him." [p 92]

For some reason cheating is a topic that has fascinated me lately, much to the chagrin of my husband who I think is getting tired of hearing about the latest celebrity caught with their pants down. I always wonder how seemingly happy couples get to that point and whether happiness even has anything to do with it. Compound that with the idea of having kids, something we're throwing around more and more frequently, and wondering how that will affect our relationship (I'm a big time worrier if you can't tell!) At one point Sarah is discussing motherhood with her friend Helen and about the differences between them and their own mothers who had them in the early twenties. "Can you imagine?" Sarah asks, "That was when we were in grad school. Can you imagine having had kids at that age? I didn't even know who I was." Helen replies, "Don't you think knowing who you are makes it harder? I mean, you know who you are, and then it becomes really difficult to be who you are."

Husband and Wife isn't just about cheating or a relationship gone awry, I think in a lot of ways its a look into whether women can really have it all and what they have to go through to obtain it.