In this book, Erdrich portrays a middle-aged couple who struggle through a marital relationship that is anything but ordinary. Irene, the main character, is the wife of Gil, a famous painter who's made his fortune, almost exclusively, on paintings of his naked wife in various positions. Irene informs the reader in chapter one that her husband made a huge mistake by sneakily reading her diary. Irene decides to start a new diary, one in which she continues to reveal her thoughts, but the old diary takes on a new objective: to cause Gil to believe things that are not true--affairs, etc.
Irene and Gil have three children ranging from primary to teenaged. The first half of the book describes the history of the children, and the second half, through the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the children, reveals the deeper side of them, and it, at times, is rather disturbing.
Though the characters developed rather clearly, the believeability of the relationships was shaky, at best. The clearest example of this was seen in the relationship between Irene and Gil. Their communication reminded me of a poorly written script for a high school play. It was as if Irene and Gil knew that they were characters in a book who were supposed to say things that would get a reaction from Sophomore girls.
Irene and Gil's daughter has quite the hatred for her father, and she makes plans for preparation for a terrible thing to come. We come to know quite a bit about her plans, but this part of the story stops. It just...stops. It's almost as if the writer didn't quite know where to go with it. Yes, after reading the book, we know that things significantly change within the family, but the author spent so much time on the plans of the daugher, the reader just figured that something might come of it.
This book moved a bit slowly for me. It's not that the descriptive writing wasn't good, but I found myself wondering, throughout the story, when I was going to be surprised. I also found myself, too many times, in the position of wondering about the relationships' plausibility. It kept my attention throughout, but I felt a bit cheated in the end.
6/10
Keep your reading expectations high,
Steve
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