THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509280454
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY PEGGY DEANS EARLE
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
ANOTHER YOU
ANN BEATTIE
Alfred A. Knopf. 325 pp. $24.
Back in 1976, when I read Ann Beattie's first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter, I felt as though I'd made a friend. I immediately recognized her characters, like the love-obsessed Charles and his perennially unemployed roommate. They reminded me of my funny, neurotic college buddies. They reminded me of me.
A lot has changed in 19 years. In Another You, Beattie's fifth novel, her protagonists are total strangers to me. They are weary, disaffected, dishonest adults; they're not my friends, nor would I want them to be. I suspect they aren't Beattie's friends, either.
But while she may not socialize with English professor Marshall Lockard, his wife Sonja or the other self-absorbed characters in Another You, Beattie certainly knows them. She presents them intimately, in all their tortured complexity.
The story covers a brief period in a college town in New Hampshire. The Lockards' marriage is in jeopardy, but neither of them has begun to face it. One winter night, as Marshall is driving home, he picks up a hitchhiker on an errand for her emotionally ailing roommate. This random act of kindness propels Marshall into a melodrama with the potential to shake him out of his existential stupor. But will it?
Cheryl, the hitchhiker and one of Marshall's students, tells him a disturbing tale about her roommate's sexual involvement with Jack McCallum, a professor and colleague of Marshall. The affair has suddenly turned abusive and the roommate is on the verge of collapse.
Meanwhile, Sonja, a real estate agent, has been carrying on a quirky affair with her boss, about which Marshall is ignorant (or just hasn't bothered to notice). Neither does he bother to visit his ailing stepmother, Evie. It is Sonja who willingly assumes this responsibility, enjoying Evie's friendship and confiding in the older woman.
Back to Marshall: He's attracted to Cheryl but can't quite separate this feeling from his sense of duty to confront Jack about the abuse of Cheryl's roommate. So Marshall phones Jack and visits Cheryl and the roommate. What ensues is a somewhat Kafkaesque adventure in which nothing turns out to be as it seems. Marshall's life spins out of control until a surreal road trip with Jack forces him to confront some long-hidden truths about his family and himself.
Beattie tags onto each chapter mysterious, italicized letters, all of which are signed "M" and addressed to "Martine." The identities of these two are eventually revealed to the reader as is their relationship, much later, to Marshall. The mystery, however, drags on a bit too long, becoming more intrusive than intriguing.
Beattie's terrific ear for conversation is evident in Another You. I only wish there had been more of that and fewer pages bogged down in dense psychological explanation.
For example, after a final tryst, Sonja and her boss end their affair:
She leaned against the car, dejected, sorry for herself, preoccupied with emotions he didn't want to know about. Her feet were crossed at the ankles, arms wrapped around her chest. She despised him, he knew.
``Where shall I take you?'' he said. His voice was ashamed, small.
``Anywhere that isn't hell,'' she said.
That's vintage Beattie.
Another You is a mature, thoughtful, densely challenging novel. Beattie's humorless people are believable and interesting. Despite myself, I cared about them. MEMO: Peggy Deans Earle is a staff librarian. ILLUSTRATION: Photos
The protagonists of ``Another You'' are not the friends found in
earlier novels.
by CNB