A Wedding in December (Anita Shreve)

It seemed fitting to read this book since it is December and all.  I recently finished my first Anita Shreve book, so I decided to give this one a try too!

A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve takes place throughout one weekend.  Seven high school friends (and a few of their life partners) are reunited when Bridget and Bill, high school sweethearts, get married after being apart for nearly two decades.  During this weekend, both good and bad memories are brought up.  All the characters seem to leave their reunion a different person than when they arrived. 

"A twenty-two-year marriage is a long story," Nora said. "It's... it's a continuum with moments of drama, periods of stupefying boredom.  passages of tremendous hope.  Passages of resignation.  One can never tell the story of a marriage.  There's no narrative that encompasses it.  Even a daily diary wouldn't tell you what you wanted to know.  Who thought what when.  Who had what dreams.  At the very least, a marriage is two intersecting stories, one of which we will never know."  (A Wedding in December, Anita Shreve, p. 151)

Meet the characters:
Nora owns the inn where the wedding is taking place.  She's a widow in this novel and has a past with Harrison.  Harrison is a publisher who is living in Toronto with his wife and two children.  He's been keeping a secret since his days at Kidd (their school).  Agnes is a writer and a teacher at her former high school, Kidd.  She's always been known as the "single one".  Bridget and Bill are the ones getting married after being apart for two decades.  Rob and Josh are both musicians.  Jerry and Julie have both have done very well for themselves since high school. 

"I just couldn't stand having you all leave after this weekend [...] and not know this about me.  That I have had a life.  It's a different life than most.  A life dispensed in moments.  But they were transcendent moments, never dull, intensely felt, full of joy.  How many of you can say that?  I have had riches.  I have had my share."  (A Wedding in December, Anita Shreve, p. 262)

This book was good.  It was an easy read, and you often wanted to know what would happen next in this busy weekend.  I liked that in different parts of the book, the narration shifted to different characters.  In one chapter, you heard about the wedding from three different points of view.  It gave you the opportunity to know what the characters were thinking about as they were about to reunite with their long lost friends.  There were lots of little secrets that were brought up at the reunion, things that either happened in high school or that had happened since.  In this way, the book wasn't entirely predictable.  I also liked how the reader is left with the ability to decide how some of the story lines will end. 

"If Harrison had learned anything about private lives, it was that anyone looking in from the outside could never know the reality."  (A Wedding in December, Anita Shreve, p. 151)

When reading some books like this, though, I do sometimes think that it's unlikely for these events to happen.  Who goes to a reunion weekend twenty years after high school and has this much drama occur?  Despite this thought, it was a good read. It makes you think of what your reunion with your best high school friends would look like, and it makes you wonder (at my age, anyway) where you will be in twenty years.

"The things that don't happen to us that we'll never know didn't happen to us," Harrison said.
"The nonstories."
"The extra minute to find the briefcase that makes you late to the spot where a tract trailer mauled another car instead of yours."  Harrison took a bite of buttery muffin and thought about his next cholesterol test.
"The woman you didn't meet because she couldn't get a taxi to the party you had to leave early from," Bill added.  "All of life is a series of nonstories if you look at it that way."  (A Wedding in December, Anita Shreve, p. 207-208)

(If you're expecting something winter-y and Christmas-y, this is not it!  It only takes place in December.)

Rescue (Anita Shreve)

I just finished reading my first Anita Shreve book.  My mom had read Rescue recently and when I was searching for my next book through our baskets and bookcases full of novels, she suggested that I read it.

Peter Webster is a paramedic.  On one of his first shifts, he first encounters Sheila, who had been in a DUI accident.  He is particularly curious about her and so he makes a point of visiting her in the hospital.  The medic/patient relationship eventually turns into a bit more.  Eighteen years later, Webster is a single father raising his daughter, Rowan.  When things with his daughter start to go off track, he thinks that maybe he can't be everything that his daughter needs.  With the possibility of Sheila back in the picture, Webster tries to decide if this really is the best thing for his daughter. 

I motored through the novel in a few days because it was an easy read.  The novel is told from the point of view of Webster.  One half of the novel was a bit of a love story that allowed you to see into the relationship between Sheila and Webster.  It contained enough details about Webster's job as a paramedic that would keep some readers interested in the novel if they aren't as interested the relationship story.  The other half of the book was less about the love story and more about the father/daughter relationship in the Webster household. 

"Do you love her?" his mother asked.
Finally, an easy question.  "I do," he said.  "Very much."  But even as he said it, and as sure as he was that he did, he wondered if he really knew what love, in these circumstances, meant.
(Rescue, Anita Shreve, p. 67)

I liked the story.  It was a little bit predictable, but there were still some aspects that came as a surprise to the reader.  I found that it was a fairly realistic story...  Many households are just like the Webster home, with single parents, broken families, and secrets.  I thought it was neat that Webster was telling stories from his medic calls, although many of these calls had little to do with the storyline itself. 

If you're looking for a light and easy read, Rescue may be the one for you!  I think a few more Anita Shreve books may be on my reading list in the future.

Go slowly and be careful.  (Rescue, Anita Shreve, p. 282)

P.S. I am a person who often does judge a book based on its cover (although this isn't the only way I choose my books!).  I don't know exactly what I was expecting from this cover, but I liked the look of it.  Somehow, though, I didn't think the story really matched the cover.  Sure, there's a mother and a daughter, but things aren't quite like this in the novel...