I usually love her stories but this one didn’t really do it for me. The story was set in the months shortly after 9/11 and that was a huge focus of the book so maybe it is too specific to the time and reading it ten years later loses something. Anita Shreve seemed out of touch with modern times and she seemed especially out of touch when trying to write anything about the fifteen year old son of one of the main characters. For example, there was one scene where the boy and his friend drank a fifth of vodka one night. The next morning he was unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital where they couldn’t pump his stomach because ALL the vodka had been absorbed by his body. The son proceeded to be “unconscious” all day. While a fifth of vodka is a good amount of alcohol and if you shared it with one other person you would most certainly be drunk I don’t think it would lead to you being unconscious all the next day. It seemed a stupid story to include in the larger story.
Other oddities:
The book is about a group of friends who haven’t seen each other in 25 years but two of the friends are getting married to each other and inexplicably invite all these people they were friends with in high school who they haven’t seen in 25 years! But no one else…
They do invite the brides mom and sister but quickly make excuses for them to leave so we can focus on the friends from high school.
The women getting married has cancer, is probably dying but still her Mom and sister make excuses to not be around her wedding weekend. “Time to hit the outlets” aiii. Makes no sense.
Anita Shreve is a great writer so all is not lost but a big old shrug on the story itself.
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