A review by an_enthusiastic_reader
Right After the Weather by Carol Anshaw
4.0
Three and three-quarters stars.
Over the last twenty years, when a novel set in New York starts out with a vivid blue morning sky on a Tuesday, you know planes will soon be crashing into buildings. The two images are paired, the blue sky before the terror. I guess now, when a novel starts out in October of 2016 and the characters are just going about their lives, maybe speculating lightly about the upcoming election, you know they probably are going to be traumatized and horrified by the outcome, much like many of us, the twinned emotions of life before and life after.
So Right After the Weather begins, and the first half of the novel establishes the setting, a forty-something woman named Cate who is a theatrical set designer living in Chicago, trying to find the right woman to date, dedicated to her best friend Neale and Neale's pre-adolescent son. She's also taking care of her ex-husband, whose mental state is precarious and gets worse once the outcome of the election is known.
Trauma comes in many forms, and this novel is full of various assaults, mental and otherwise. It might be trying to do too much, but it also conveys to the sympathetic reader a state of agitation and moral decay, alongside trying to simply live our lives. The novel's observations are cutting; the main character very rarely doles out the benefit of the doubt toward her romantic partners or herself. But there are small glimmers of happiness that peek out from time to time.
All in all, thoughtful and downbeat. I'll be thinking about it beyond today.
Over the last twenty years, when a novel set in New York starts out with a vivid blue morning sky on a Tuesday, you know planes will soon be crashing into buildings. The two images are paired, the blue sky before the terror. I guess now, when a novel starts out in October of 2016 and the characters are just going about their lives, maybe speculating lightly about the upcoming election, you know they probably are going to be traumatized and horrified by the outcome, much like many of us, the twinned emotions of life before and life after.
So Right After the Weather begins, and the first half of the novel establishes the setting, a forty-something woman named Cate who is a theatrical set designer living in Chicago, trying to find the right woman to date, dedicated to her best friend Neale and Neale's pre-adolescent son. She's also taking care of her ex-husband, whose mental state is precarious and gets worse once the outcome of the election is known.
Trauma comes in many forms, and this novel is full of various assaults, mental and otherwise. It might be trying to do too much, but it also conveys to the sympathetic reader a state of agitation and moral decay, alongside trying to simply live our lives. The novel's observations are cutting; the main character very rarely doles out the benefit of the doubt toward her romantic partners or herself. But there are small glimmers of happiness that peek out from time to time.
All in all, thoughtful and downbeat. I'll be thinking about it beyond today.