Review: Contrasting Lives
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 31, 2014
This tale unfolds in interweaving chapters from the alternating viewpoints of Lucy and Robin, its two protagonists. Each tells her tale in first person, present tense, providing intimacy and momentum. Both are comfortably middle class, self-aware, and voluble. Beyond these similarities, they have different motivations and experiences. Lucy is married, family oriented, concerned with social causes, and politically oriented. Key events in her tale are a stressful family gathering, overcoming hurdles to get pregnant, childbirth and aftermath, following the 2012 election as a partisan Democrat, helping a relative, and getting on with her life; all are typical events in married life. Robin is single with an unsuccessful romantic life. She is trying to build a career, and is tuned in to popular culture. Key events in her tale are a romantic breakup, an audition, getting ahead, and complications that follow. The novel is not outwardly didactic, but its structure will encourage a thoughtful reader to compare the two lives and make comparative judgments.