The Story of a Marriage: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew Sean Greer
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $22.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 1285
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.4 x 1.2 x 1
ISBN: 0374108668
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780374108663
ASIN: 0374108668
Publication Date: April 29, 2008
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Product Description
From the bestselling author of The Confessions of Max Tivoli, a love story full of secrets and astonishments set in 1950s San Francisco “We think we know the ones we love.” So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship, how we can ever truly know another person. It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset district of San Francisco, caring not only for her husband’s fragile health but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep and everything changes. All the certainties by which Pearlie has lived are thrown into doubt. Does she know her husband at all? And what does the stranger want in return for his offer of $100,000? For six months in 1953, young Pearlie Cook struggles to understand the world around her, most especially her husband, Holland. Pearlie’s story is a meditation not only on love but also on the effects of war—with one war just over and another one in Korea coming to a close. Set in a climate of fear and repression—political, sexual, and racial—The Story of a Marriage portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it. Lyrical and surprising, The Story of a Marriage looks back at a period that we tend to misremember as one of innocence and simplicity. Like Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, Andrew Sean Greer’s novel is a narrative tour de force that confirms him as “one of the most talented writers around” (Michael Chabon).
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Tinny and Artificial July 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Pearlie has a taste for aphoristic musings. "We think we know the ones we love," she writes. "But what we love turns out to be a poor translation, a translation we ourselves have made, from a language we barely know." These quasi-Proustian observations and their associated metaphors are brought to a state of high polish. But Greer's plotting doesn't always live up to Pearlie's commentary. A side-story involving a spirited white girl who's secretly engaged to a prejudiced soda-jerk is tacked on to the main plot in a way that's both implausible and underexplained. Pearlie's sympathy for Buzz blooms remarkably quickly, and there's an excess of busily symbolic detail. If the characters watch a movie, overhear a TV show or read the words printed on a paper bag, what they come across will be eerily reflective of their predicament.
Most of all, Greer's first big narrative bombshell doesn't detonate with the force that he seems to be hoping for. After all the wary looks from white neighbors, references to the status of the "colored" population, mentions of Pearlie's "community" and descriptions of visits to segregated lunchrooms, only very inattentive readers will be startled to learn that the Cooks are black; some might even wonder why Pearlie has tried to play such a heavy-handed trick. The surprises in what follows are managed more skillfully, and Greer has clearly done his homework on the time he's depicting. But the artificial, slightly tinny resonance never goes away.
"This is a war story. It was not meant to be." July 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"It started as a love story, the story of a marriage, but the war has stuck to it everywhere like shattered glass. Not an ordinary story of men in battle but of those who did not go to war." So writes Andrew Sean Greer: in marriage, and in war, there are hard times, severe pain, and sometimes, resolution and understanding.
The story, set in 1953, centers around Pearlie COok, a dutiful wife, her husband Holland, a conflicted man, their young son Sonny who is afflicted with polio, and a stranger named Buzz who throws this world into turmoil. Within their story, much of the fear and paranoia of the era is played out -- sexism, racism, homophobia, and the continuing saga of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed for treason.
This is not a perfect book. As other reviewers have pointed out, some of the coincidences are improbable; also, the characters are not as introspective as this reader would have liked. What's more (no spoilers), the sacrifice Pearlie is willing to make to ensure her husband's happiness seems excessive and, to this reader, unlikely, especially considering the era. On the other hand, the questions Greer raises on war, love and motherhood, combined with the luminous writing, raise this book to a higher standard. I'd recommend it with qualifications.
 Raed this if you appreciate good writing July 6, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I am an avid reader and this is the best book I've read in a long time. The writing is just beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I found myself re reading paragraphs because the imagery was stunning. I don't know how people write like that and maintain such an original voice throughout a whole book, but he does it wonderfully. I didn't want it to end, but I could not put it down, what a great story. Please keep writing Mr. Greer!!
 Dont Buy this book July 6, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
I bought this book because of the great reviews. However, this is pure
trash--not even worth a nod. Short 195 pages of nonsense. Some man marries a woman who turns out to be black (I didnt see that one coming) but he, in his not too distant past, slept with another man and the man
never got over such a thrill so he stalked the black woman's husband and
offered to buy him from her (slavery is illegal even love slaves) etc etc etc. On the trip to marriage bliss our black husband sleeps with some white woman who is engaged to some other white man and someone dies.
So sad, you dont give a s*** about anyone.
Wow. And yet... July 6, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Lovingly crafted, standing apart from 'standard' literary fiction, this novel is a curiosity.
It had me, at turns, enchanted...confused...desperate for more...and dreading the end. Not because I didn't want it to end, but because I sensed that satisfaction was bound to be elusive.
It's a distinct piece of writing (without being pretentious), and yet...
...well, I refer you to Stanley H. Nemeth's review.
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