Lost and Bound

Bound
Antonya Nelson
Bloomsbury, 2010

Catherine and Oliver, young wife and older entrepreneurial husband, are negotiating their difference in age and a plethora of well-concealed secrets. Oliver, now in his sixties, is a serial adulterer and has just fallen giddily in love yet again. Catherine, seemingly placid and content, has ghosts of a past she scarcely remembers. When Catherine's long-forgotten high school friend dies and leaves Catherine the guardian of her teenage daughter, that past comes rushing back. As Oliver manages his new love, and Catherine her new charge and darker past, local news reports turn up the volume on a serial killer who has reappeared after years of quiet, causing everyone to be just a little bit on edge.

This quiet little book at first appears to be contemplative and reflective. Perhaps the reader expects lots of description and too little dialogue. It actually proved to be more interesting and compelling than I expected. Don’t get the wrong idea: it wasn’t so fascinating that I couldn’t put it down, but it wasn’t boring, like the cover implies. However, I quite forgot what it was about two days after I finished it -- I guess it wasn’t as good as I remembered. The premise is not so unique: older husband is a cheater; younger wife finds she doesn’t much care. He is giddy with new love; she is preoccupied with the news that she is now the guardian of a girl she has never met. Orphaned teenager is confused, grieving, and feeling abandoned. All very typical and perhaps even stereotypical.

So, what made this book different? I’m not sure. The tone was quiet, reserved and distant. I didn’t really care about the characters or the outcome, but something appealed to me. The writing was spare and the book short. It seemed that each word was carefully chosen and placed in exactly the perfect spot. The experience of reading was rewarding even if the characters, plot and ending were uneventful. It’s almost as if the language took over the rest of the elements of the story, making them unimportant in the whole. It’s an interesting effect, and worth the effort.

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Other books by this author:
The Expendables: stories (1990)
Talking in Bed (1996)
Nobody’s Girl (1998)
Living to Tell (2000)
Female Trouble: a collection of short stories (2002)
Nothing Right: stories (2009)

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