FAULT LINE

Queasy-making memoir from novelist Alberts (Lost Daughters, 1999, etc.) about two damaged souls who first met while he was at Harvard and she was a suburban high-schooler.

In 1996, the author learned of the death of Kim Janik, a man with whom she had an emotionally destructive, on-and-off relationship from 1969 until 1984. In prose at times too self-eviscerating, doubtless because it maintains an edge as sharp as a flake of obsidian all of the time, Alberts questions her role in Janik’s disintegration. It won’t be easy: “I knew Kim better than anyone did; I was incapable of knowing Kim.” The product of an abysmal home life—her father a drunken bully and her mother ineffectual—teenaged Laurie was slapped around by bouts of depression, anxiety, and anorexia; focus and empathy weren’t her strong points. Kim seemed a port in the storm: independent, smart, and soon enough lusty and loving. To get some control over her life, Alberts needed to exercise and enjoy the power of being wanted, and not just by Janik, which fueled a rage of jealousy. They separated and re-coupled too many times to count. “He offered unconditional love. . . . I offered him an opportunity to be Mr. Rescue.” His role suffocated, hers was never enough. Ultimately, Alberts was too befuddled by the tumult of her brain chemistry and the times, while Janik surrendered to unchecked love and unbearable loss. Though it is never affected, there are moments when the author’s narrative approaches a too-raw indulgence, as when she intones, “It is possible that his will be the last name on my lips at the moment of my death.” (One wonders what her daughter and husband will think of that.) You have the feeling Alberts will pay an unexpected price for this book.

An American life from the 1970s, with all its crucifying reverb.