Staff Pick
Instagram is littered with perfect marriages — everyone is in love and photogenic and happier than you. But what would you see if you got to peek behind the shiny facade? For 20 years, Jon and Timmy have maintained the heightened passion that ignited their relationship, even as they raise kids, build a household, and advance in their careers. But this is a story of a marriage that ends and that's where the book begins, after Timmy has left Jon for another man. Jon is the narrator, exploring the unraveling of their relationship from his wife's point of view. A risky choice, but one that pays off as The Story of a Marriage is brilliant. Every emotion that Gulliksen so vividly describes is one I have felt before, making this a painful but worthwhile read. Sometimes, when you peek behind a facade, you find a mirror. Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
A dramatic portrait of the dissolution of a marriage, written with brutal and lyrical precision, and nominated for the Nordic Prize. Jon, who is losing his wife to another man, is trying to understand what happened to his Great Love, by working, painfully, to see the story from her perspective. It begins as he asks her: "Can you tell me about us?" As he looks to his past and within himself, he begins to question the conventions of masculinity and femininity, understanding himself uncommonly as a man who challenges the male role--he's deeply embedded in family life, and identifies as sensitive, vulnerable, and nurturing. And finally, in an effort to understand how his wife could fall in love with someone else, he attempts an ultimate act of empathy: to tell the story from the other man's point of view, raising crippling questions: Is it possible to have sex without violating oneself or the other? How much of what we think is love is only projection? Is it possible to truly know another person?
With prose unsettling in its precision and emotional heft, The Story of a Marriage cracks wide open the familiar story of a failed love, as it turns cliched phrases over and over again until they crumble, revealing a bitter hollowness--or ringing new meanings.