I found this book to be emotionally engaging and read it very quickly. There is a keen awareness of the unsteady world in which we live and in which the story unfolds. Spiotta’s writing has a satirical bite to it. She deftly mocks a number of prevailing social trends including ideas about aging, women’s looks, political parties, urban renewal, career fulfillment, and fashionable neurochemical explanations of behavior to name a few. She also has a unique capacity to describe raw human emotions in a palpable and convincing manner, and Sam runs the gamut from intense love to anger to regret. There is a jarring episode when Sam is in a parking lot looking for a spot. When she finds a new oversized van straddling a line and purposely parked to occupy two spots, Sam explodes. She uses her keys to scrape the paint the length of the van, then silently walks away, and we feel her fury. Similarly, Spiotta’s description of the initial exciting inter-personal chemistry as Sam and Matt sit at a bar after their first meeting (at a women’s rights demonstration) is vivid and visceral. One can also feel Sam’s angst when she texts her daughter from her new home late at night and anxiously scans her phone for a response

This is not a perfect book. Sam can be an overbearing presence in her life and on the page, and her perspective dominates from start to finish. We expect the main characters of a novel to dominate the narrative. But Sam’s stream of thought can be suffocating. She is a protagonist who takes up all the oxygen in the fictional space. Some key elements of the plot strain credulity. Is it plausible that Sam would abandon her family and move to an unfurnished inner-city home without central heating and air conditioning? Would a husband whose wife has inexplicably walked out on him be so kind and generous? There is a Dickensian quality to the book in which key events unfold inevitably like the interlocking parts of a puzzle, but a bit too conveniently; one is left thinking there are too many “coincidences.”

Yet, I think there is enormous power and timeliness to the book. Every novel has to have a central character and that person can only assume one identity – in this case an affluent, suburban, middle-aged white woman. Womanhood and female biology and gender identity are indispensable elements in Spiotta’s novel. But what Spiotta accomplishes with that character is to create a narrative that captures universal feelings and reactions despite the idiosyncratic personal setting. We all feel rage and love, regret, and anticipation. Who has not questioned the value of their career and tried to find meaning as the circumstances around them change? Who has not struggled to balance protection of and separation from their children? Who has not wondered at times where their life fits in the grand scheme of things? Spiotta’s creation, experiences these feelings and more in a universally recognizable manner.

A novel has two components – the ideas it engages with and the characters who move the plot forward. The two elements are integrally linked and both are essential for a novel to succeed.    When literature succeeds, it creates a space in which readers can learn to understand and appreciate the experiences of others. It accomplishes this because the novelist enables the reader to transcend the innumerable things that divide us and recognize the universal concerns that we all share. Sam, her life circumstance, and the people in her life are completely outside my realm of experience,  but Spiotta succeeds in creating characters that brought to life themes that were of importance to me as a reader. I think I the majority of readers will agree.