Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Sometimes friendship crosses a line . . .
A group of close friends, their bonds forged at the nursery gates two decades ago, have celebrated, commiserated and grown together: they thought they all knew each other so well.
Until the affair.
Now a crack appears in everything.
Could one betrayal really destroy it all?
Many thanks to Ed Pr for my copy of Other People’s Husbands to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
I first discovered Elizabeth Noble when she published her brilliant debut and a gem of a read, The Reading Group, way back in 2002 which is hard to believe is over 20 years ago now. I’ll admit though it’s been quite some time since I read one of her latest books so I was interested to try out her new book, Other People’s Husbands, as there has been a great buzz around this book and I was keen to see how her writing style had changed and evolved.
Straight away I’ll say two things. First this is a long book at just under 500 pages and in my mind perhaps it could have been shorter and the same messages and themes would have come across just as well. Secondly, there are an awful lot of characters to familiarise yourself with. When I see a list of a cast of characters appear before the story has even begun, I become apprehensive that there is no way that I will be able to keep track of who is who and what their various storylines are.
Six couples which means 12 individuals and their various children all feature here and to be honest for the vast majority of the book it was just too much for me. It would have been really beneficial to have had a name appear at the start of each chapter so I could know who it was focusing on. It wasn’t until the halfway point, which at 250 pages I consider quite some time to get into a book, that I felt the book found its rhythm and settled down and the story really took off. Up until that point I felt nothing really occurred, but the second half made up for the first and I felt like I was reading a different book altogether and I found myself reading turning the pages much quicker.
Now, that I’ve gotten the two main issues I had with this read out of the way let’s focus on the story itself and the good points it has. This is a mature read which focuses on a group of men and women who forged a friendship at the school gates but that latest way beyond their children’s time in school.The group are close knit and spend special occasions and some breaks away together. They can have time away from each other but yet always come back together and pick up where they last left off. I loved how this wasn’t a young, wild and frivolous group. The couples had been married for many years and the majority of the children were now adults themselves and this helped feed into the overall plot. The story details how one act of selfishness can cause severe repercussions not just for those closely involved but also for those in the extended friendship circle. Lives are destroyed and everything you knew about people is called into question. How can trust be restablished or is it too late and love and devotion lost forever? Loyalties and actions are questioned and dissected, and an overall balanced viewpoint is presented as to how individual people cope when the dramatic revelations come out into the open.
The six couples that feature are Phil and Gemma, Kit and Natalie, Ross and Vanessa, Andrew and Flick, Dom and Sarah and Rupert and Annie. They all have different numbers of children whose names I won’t detail because to be honest only one or two of them needed to feature in detail to show how the actions of two people impacted on their children’s lives. This was cleverly done as I thought the adult children in question were finding happiness but potentially it could be up scuttled. Again here this is where the selfishness of a minority impacted the majority. I felt two couples could have been left out of the equation as they didn’t feature much and for some of the book I questioned the necessity of the inclusion of one or two others but on reflection they were needed as they helped tie certain mini strands of the story together with the overall plot. Some of the characters were under utilised and I would have liked to have seen more of them and then in the later half some of the characters I had viewed as being meek or subsequent to requirements shone through for me in a surprising way showing their strength and tenacity and willingness to face things head on.
As mentioned in the blurb it’s an affair that allows cracks to open within the group. These fissures widen the more details are slowly revealed. Who are the two culprits? Well, that’s for you to read to discover. Suffice to say I didn’t like or admire either of the pair because of their actions and the resulting impact it had on everyone else’s lives. As a question in the blurb asks ‘Could one betrayal really destroy it all?’. Well, that’s what the book explores. How do the dynamics of the group change? How do various individuals close ranks and support the person in need yet they feel a slight disloyalty to the person engaged in said affair? Both the women and the men are caught between a rock and a hard place as they battle with their own emotions in dealing with the situation. It’s a fascinating insight into a group that appeared rock solid but this cataclysmic situation has caused huge fissures to appear that may not be repairable.
Actions have consequences and there are many people involved in the rash and lustful actions of just two people. A wide range of emotions are found on every page - anger, hurt, humiliation, lack of understanding, loss, devastation, sadness and fury to name but a few and I could see that all these feelings were very much valid and needed to be felt by all the characters in particular by the women. As you read through the book you wonder will the groups friendship and love be able to withstand the ultimate no go act as so many boundaries were crossed and vows were broken? But as I have mentioned the author, in the later half did a very good job of presenting all viewpoints so that I as a reader swayed back and forth in my opinion as to the overall situation. I had never thought this possible given the premise and how I feel about such a thing but that’s testament to the way she wrote the book that I really got to thinking about things. The characters are not perfect by any means and all have their flaws and imperfections most notably the two whose deeds have shattered lives. They become emotionally battered and bruised and the various other couples become dragged into the mess and stuck in the middle of a situation they would have more than likely kept out of if they had not been such a tight group whose friendship has sustained them for many years.
Persist with the first half of Other People’s Husbands as it is slow going and time is needed to get to know the individual characters and then you will be rewarded as there is a very good story waiting to be read here. It’s a well written account of how infidelity can collide with others rather than just the two who paid no heed to the emotionally and physical consequences of their actions. The power of female friendship and solidarity is illustrated very well. The ending was not perhaps what I was expecting but the book was all the better for it. It’s definitely a good choice for a book club as it provides plenty of food for thought and discussion points and not everyone will be of the same opinion.
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