... by Jeffrey Eugenides is liked "One Day" for those living in this broken world ... It is about loving someone who is difficult to love and one of questions being asked is ...
"From the books you read for your thesis, and for your article - the Austen and the James and everything - was there any novel where the heroine gets married to the wrong guy and then realises it, and then the other suitor shows up, some guy who's always been in love with her, and then they get together, but finally the second suitor realises that the last thing the woman needs is to get married again, that she's got more important things to do with her life? And so finally the guy doesn't propose at all, even though he still loves her? Is there any book that ends like that? ... But do you think that this would be good? As an ending?"
My answer would be a resounding NO! My patient today told me that her second husband died from heart failure two months ago. Her heart is absolutely shattered but the time they had together was, and still is, the most important thing for her. That, for me, is the real marriage plot.
