Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill

In Department of Speculation, author Jenny Offill employs an unusual style to tell the story of a marriage. In this book, the wife (all characters are unnamed) records thoughts and experiences about her life in New York City.  She ruminates about earlier suitors, how her husband wooed and won her, the birth of their child, the stress of living with bedbugs and, eventually, the strain of infidelity on a marriage, even a marriage with what seems to be an ideal partner. With small observations about Buddhism, stars, Antarctic exploration, space travel and other diverse subjects, Jenny Offill tells a modern day love story in lyrical, poetic language. 

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That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo

In That Old Cape Magic, Richard Russo steps away from his usual working class towns in upstate New York, focusing instead on college professor Jack Griffin and his relationships with his wife, daughter, parents and in-laws. Trips to Cape Cod to attend two weddings, a year apart, mark the beginning and end of this story.  Cape Cod had played a big part in Griffin’s life. He’d spent his childhood summers there with his horrible parents, both college professors at a Midwestern public university. Incompatible and snobby, thwarted in their ambitions to teach at a more prestigious Eastern college, these two were experts at making themselves, their son and everyone else around them miserable. Yet Griffin loved the Cape all his life. He and his wife honeymooned, took jobs, bought a house and started a family in the area. The first wedding is that of his daughter’s best friend. In the second Griffin’s own beloved daughter marries. But a lot happens between weddings.  Griffin and his wife attend the first as a couple, a couple that has been married for thirty years. To their own daughter’s wedding, they each bring a date.  Griffin uses his time driving to and from his daughter’s wedding to examine how his own shortcomings have brought him to this state of affairs. With a little introspection, he realizes that he has not fallen as far from the family tree as he previously thought and admits to his own fault in his damaged relationships. Skilled writer that he is, Russo is able to turn all this family angst and anger into a very funny book. 

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A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve

Margaret and Patrick set off on a Kenyan adventure.  He’s a doctor who will be doing research and running clinics.  Margaret is a photographer who ends up getting a job with the local paper.  Their friends suggest a trip up Mount Kenya and the couple agree even though Margaret has doubts about her abilities.  She ends up being the slowest member of the group and when a tragedy occurs she is blamed by all, even her husband.  Their marriage will never be the same.    They avoid talking about it and Margaret develops an attraction for her coworker.  Anita Shreve delves into human emotion and uses her personal experiences in Kenya to bring the country to life.  Check out A Change in Altitude @ the library!

Amity and Sorrow by Peggy Riley

When fire destroys the compound of the polygamous community she belongs to, Amaranth, the first of fifty wives, puts her two daughters, Sorrow and Amity, into a car and drives as long and far as she can. After three days, she falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and crashes in front of an Oklahoma farm. The farmer, Bradley, a man with his own problems, is at first unwelcoming. But the women are unable to move on, so eventually his decency compels him to help. He allows them first in the yard, then on the porch, and finally in the kitchen. Amaranth and her teen-age daughters find it difficult to discard the beliefs and rules of their religion, particularly Sorrow, who had an unnaturally close relationship with the Patriarch, her father. Flashbacks reveal what brought Amaranth and many of the other wives to such an unusual way of life, mainly loneliness and uncertainty.  But leaving the cult brings even greater loneliness and uncertainty, particularly for the children who never knew another life. Amity and Sorrow cannot read and write. They have never seen a television or eaten food they have not helped to grow and prepare. They cling to the odd religious garments they have worn all their lives. They yearn for the community of women that raised them. They are afraid to walk in a field or look at a man. Amity, the younger girl, is curious about the new world she finds herself in and more adaptable, but Sorrow, beloved of her father and the Oracle of his community, plots, against her mother’s wishes, to return.  When they fled the community, Amaranth physically tied her daughters together to keep Sorrow from running away. But physical ties are not as strong as emotions and the family is irreparably torn. 

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