Heart of the Matter- Emily Giffin

#81. Heart of the Matter- Emily Giffin

Emily Giffin seems to write about cheating a lot. I'm curious as to why; what about the act of infidelity strikes such a chord in her? As a (wannabe) writer, I find myself approaching certain subjects over and over again, in different ways, trying to make sense of them and figure out what they mean to me, so I have to wonder why cheating with Ms. Giffin. But that's just me.

Tessa is a stay-at-home mom to two young children. She recently quit work to focus more on her family, but she's finding the domestic life not quite all she thought it would be. Her husband, Nick, is a busy doctor, a plastic surgeon, and Tessa is positive he'd never cheat on her. Across town, Valerie is a lawyer and a single mother. At a slumber party, her son Charlie is badly burned, and his subsequent surgeries place him under the care of Tessa's husband. You can guess where this one goes.

The structure of this interested me. It's a dual narrative; Tessa narrates in the first person, but Valerie's chapters are told in the third. Was that to give us some distance from Valerie? I'm not sure. I didn't care for this as much as some of Giffin's other works; I felt a little like there was too much justification for Valerie's actions, a little too much, "Oh, she's the sad, lonely single mom with no maaaaaaaaaan, how will she survive? And poor Charlie with no dad! He needs a dad! Why not take that dad?" I don't know. The ending came together a little too easily for me, as well, and maybe left me feeling a little uncomfortable and unsatisfied. If you're a Giffin fan, I wouldn't avoid it, but I didn't love it as much as, say, Something Borrowed.

Word:

celadon- n- any of several Chinese porcelain having a translucent, pale green glaze; any porcelain imitating these; a pale gray-green.

exculpate- v- to clear from a charge of guilt or fault, free from blame, vindicate.

syrah- n- a red grape grown in France and Australia, used, often in a blend, for making wine; any of various wines made from this grape.