I don't remember why, but I had this book on the list I keep on my phone of books I'd like to read this year. If I don't keep that list, I'll forget what I wanted to read by the time I get to the bookstore or library. Casualty of old age, I suppose. Anyway, this was on my list and it just happened to be available at my tiny, largely picked-over local library. It's nothing like what I normally read; it was fantastic.
I've had the above song in my head since picking up this book. Even before I knew what the book was really about, this Matt Nathanson song was rolling around because of the title. It's one of my go-to songs when I'm in the car and I feel like singing so loud I embarrass myself and hurt my own eardrums (which is pretty much every day.) I saw him in concert a few years ago; he said he wrote it when talking to a female friend about the Bachelor. Anyway, it's a good song. And, the similarities between the song and the book were evident as well. I'm listening to it right now, because it's just a fantastic song.
So, nothing really happens in this book. I mean, it does. But, there's no big climax we're building to, no real mystery, no major character shakeups. That's not to say it's boring - it most certainly is not. I found myself moving through it as quickly as I would any book that had those more traditional plot elements. What it is, is real. A real look at the reality of relationships at two very different points in life.
The main characters are college friends, years later. One couple is two women raising a daughter; the other is a man and woman, raising a son. They're connected by a shared past and a neighborhood street. Three of the four were in a college band together in another lifetime; one of them wrote a song that became an iconic hit, made famous by one of their bandmates who left the group. As a movie producer reaches out to buy the rights to the song for a biopic on the late singer who made it a smash hit, the reality of how their lives hits them square in the face. And the decision to hand over the song opens up wounds and secrets they did not expect.
That sounds like the plot, right? It's really not. Really, that's just the thread that moves the story along. What it's really about is how those marriages have changed and evolved and how, in many ways, complacency has turned them into roommates more than passionate partners.
They ask themselves, are we happy? And, one concludes, "Happy was a word for sorority girls and clowns, and those were two distinctly fucked-up groups of people." The decision they face is what so many long-married couples would echo: is content the same thing as happy? Can you be happy without white-hot passion? Is it worth chasing the passion, if it means risking the contentment?
While they're looking back longingly at what they believe they've lost, their children are beginning a relationship. So, you're seeing love at its fiery beginning and what may be its flickering end. It's not depressing, it's real. It's common. It's nostalgic.
I love that line. LOVE THAT LINE. Because we all had that summer, right? When our skin felt like it was sparking with the touch of someone new. When you fell so hard, you were sure you'd never get back up. The entire world laid out before you; it never occurred to you that it might end.
In this book, the parents look back at that summer with sadness, knowing they'll never recapture that magic - never feel that same euphoric high. The teenagers, though, know to embrace it. To remember every line, every curve, every first. To hang on to what they know is fleeting by living it, knowing somehow that someday, they'd need to lean back on these memories to get them through the quiet nights, decades later.
I really liked this book. Every character was perfect and flawed, selfish and unselfish. And, the ending wrapped up in a nice enough bow to feel like everyone's going to be alright. That we're all going to be alright.
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