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I am not exactly enchanted, but this was certainly a good book that I am going to be thinking of, for a while.
The story is told by four different voices, Jonathan’s, Bobby’s, Clare's and Bobby’s mother’s, Alice. We get to know Jonathan and Bobby as boys in their respective families in a suburban Cleveland. We watch them develop a very deep connection in their teenage years. As time passes the relationship loosens for a while, until as grownup and independent people they end up together again, but this time in a fairly unusual living situation in the countryside outside of New York.
The story circles around convenience and expectations, both those of our own and those that others have towards us. It is also about parental love, and friendship and love and in general - or what passes as one, to an uninformed eye.
The relationships between characters in this book could have perhaps risen an eyebrow or two in the 1990s. Thirty years later it feels like something that passes without much of a fuss but Cunningham’s skill in portraying and developing his characters, their dilemmas and choices, still makes an impression.
The story is told by four different voices, Jonathan’s, Bobby’s, Clare's and Bobby’s mother’s, Alice. We get to know Jonathan and Bobby as boys in their respective families in a suburban Cleveland. We watch them develop a very deep connection in their teenage years. As time passes the relationship loosens for a while, until as grownup and independent people they end up together again, but this time in a fairly unusual living situation in the countryside outside of New York.
The story circles around convenience and expectations, both those of our own and those that others have towards us. It is also about parental love, and friendship and love and in general - or what passes as one, to an uninformed eye.
The relationships between characters in this book could have perhaps risen an eyebrow or two in the 1990s. Thirty years later it feels like something that passes without much of a fuss but Cunningham’s skill in portraying and developing his characters, their dilemmas and choices, still makes an impression.
