MARRIAGES

by Peter Straub ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 1973

Sometime during the course of this prismatic (an angle here, a facet there, perhaps only a reflection) first novel, Straub via Owen, an American businessman living in England and traveling in Europe, explains a variety of reasons why people read novels. Two of the most applicable here might be the way ""people use words -- or the way they put scenes together"" -- and the latter are accomplished in a forward, backward and often sidelong fashion. Once assembled by the close, you will have followed several marriages -- those of friends, those of a sister-in-law, but primarily Owen's when it exists only in absentis -- namely during an affair with ""the woman"" who is just as nameless as that, but who represents, for a time, the apogee of sensuous pleasure. It all ends with a rancorous scene (after she absents herself with another man) and an accident. But Owen has learned a little -- that ""Marriage was the arena of other more dogged perceptions"" before he returns to it. Precisely observed but even so impalpable -- like the experience which just glances off the page.

Pub Date: March 21, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION