The Marriage Plot

Fiction
Written By Meighan

By Jeffrey Eugenides

Madeline, Mitchell and Leonard are seniors at Brown in the late 1980's. Mitchell and Madeline have a history of friendship and undeveloped romance. Mitchell is the nice, stable, safe guy. Leonard is the brooding, hip, super cool guy from the Pacific Northwest. No one is more enamored with his coolness than he. Madeline is a bit maddening. She has had a very uneventful, "normal" life, which she seems embarrassed by. She is almost apologetic for the fact that she has had a stable life with a loving family. Many of her choices seem designed to create havoc in her life, which she feels will bring her some sort of validity. The question this book left me with is this: "Falling in love" is wonderful and exciting but enjoying a healthy, lifelong relationship is something else entirely and is "falling in love" enough of a foundation (especially if the object of your affection is clearly very troubled) on which to build that healthy, stable relationship? I sometimes wonder. 

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Meighan

I write short, pithy, book recommendations for family and friends. My best life is comprised of my husband, my boys, my books, a quiet place, a comfortable chair, a cocktail on my side table, and a Vizsla in my lap.

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