Those acquainted with Ayelet Waldman’s controversial (read: annoying) New York Times essay titled “Truly, Madly, Guiltily,” may greet news of her latest novel, “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits,” with a bit of skepticism. In her Times piece, Waldman obnoxiously, albeit eloquently, put forward the bold statement that she, in fact, loved her husband more than she loved her children, causing mothers and bloggers across the country to react with snarky venom.
In “Love,” Waldman seems to infuse her main character with the very traits others have ascribed to the author in cyberspace – Emilia Greenleaf is narcissistic, self-indulgent and obsessed with her husband. Which would be fine if the rest of the book had legs.
The novel centers on Emilia, and the generally self-flagellating monologue flowing through her brain. Having seduced her current husband, Jack, away from his former wife, she has taken on with him visitation responsibility for his precocious son, William. Thus, the novel opens as she grumbles her way across Central Park, the backdrop for much of the story, to retrieve 5-year-old William at school. Yet while dear William is certainly aggravating with his constant quoting of factoids and strict adherence to his mother’s rules, the audience must read further to discover why Emilia is so extremely morose.
Hints are dropped until we discover Emilia and Jack’s own daughter, Isabel, died from sudden infant death syndrome three months earlier. Pile this on top of the news that her father has spent upward of $50,000 in his pursuit of a Russian hooker named Oksana, and perhaps we can understand why Emilia is having some difficulty controlling her emotions. Her only refuge is in her walks through the park, now tainted by all the “mommies” pushing their strollers, and also in her painfully stereotypical gay friend Simon, who apparently sees no self-irony in calling Emilia “girlfriend” and dragging her out to Barney’s as a cure for the crisis du jour.
Some of the most compelling scenes in the novel come when we see Emilia struggling on her Wednesday afternoons with William – taking him to the park, insisting he ice skate without a helmet or convincing this boy who believes himself lactose-intolerant that the ice cream at Serendipity is dairy-free. Yet she consistently returns to an inability to love this boy who is not her own, a point that almost costs her her relationship with Jack.
It is only at this convenient juncture that she realizes her love for the boy. Although William is, as the only character who does not pussyfoot around Emilia in an attempt to avoid her outbursts, the only likable character, the 180-degree flip she makes at the end of the novel strains credulity.
Emilia, for her part, storms around New York as everyone walks on eggshells in an attempt not to anger her. This would be fine except one gets the impression that Waldman wants us to like her, wants us to sympathize with her grief, even though she destroys everything in her path. When referring to the damage she wreaked on an unsuspecting wife and son, Emilia says, “I was the atom bomb of desire, and they were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” Aside from the horrific metaphor, this does not do much to ingratiate the main character with the reader.
Before “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits,” Waldman wrote a series of mystery novels aptly titled “The Mommy-Track Mysteries.” When writing in the mystery form, it is appropriate to build suspense, to keep readers guessing until they figure it out or experience that “aha!” when the truth is finally revealed.
Waldman seems tied to this format, as she waits too long to reveal the reason for Emilia’s misery. It is not until at least Page 50 that we realize why Emilia can barely function and is prone to sudden outbursts, and by this point we have already classified her as unlikable and irrational. The novel does not provide the space to undo this impression, and as such, we are left with a heroine we do not like and care very little for, whatever grandiose, hyper-Freudian epiphany she reaches at the conclusion of the novel.
At its best, “Love and Other Impossible Pursuits” is the witty tale of a neurotic Jewess dealing with some very real, very modern issues. The characters are relatively believable, but more because we can all imagine on our own the overbearing ex-wife, or the know-it-all stepson who grates on your nerves to no end.
The language of the book, unfortunately, does less to evoke the reality or comedy of the scene than that these are scenes that have now entered the societal zeitgeist. I could swear I saw Jack’s ex on a recent episode of “Desperate Housewives.” Since we as readers already have a feel for who we think the characters are, Waldman’s attempts to control our perception come up either short or hyperbolic, as she attempts to infuse them with an almost superhuman capacity. Of Jack’s reaction to Isabel’s death, Emilia says, “his weeping drew a flow of milk from my swollen and aching breasts.”
No wonder Ayelet Waldman loves her husband.
Miriam Robinson is a Boulder-based freelance writer
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
By Ayelet Waldman
Doubleday, 340 pages, $23.95
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