Chapter Three: Midway on a journey to a hot springs, the wheels nearly fall off the family car. Jennifer, her kids and her new husband could have all died. Turns out the new husband forgot to tighten the lug nuts down earlier the week prior but will not admit making the error. Rather he calls it “one of those things.” After fixing the wheels, Jennifer struggles. Her husband is the best of men. A doctor. A teacher. He is smart, kind, and good but is he? Is he really? She takes her dilemma to her dearest friend…
It makes perfect sense to me she would reach out to her close friend to confide her worries; I would do the same. So this was believable, relatable. The dialogue and the beats so natural. I appreciated that at this point in the narrative we get the history of her marriages and the role of therapy in each. That was context that got me further invested because this fascinates me, the whole idea of whether a marriage can be saved or whether, as they say legally, it is irretrievably broken (in my situation, when I was ready for therapy, my ex wasn't --for years he wasn't, and when he was finally ready, I had moved on...) As for the Nike exec's book, a chief problem I suspect in the way the book is described is she is writing from the political not the personal, that it is a polemic rather than a personal narrative with the concrete, personal, vulnerable details that allow us to see her pain. Writing from the head not the heart. Writing perhaps to settle a score. It's hard to say without reading any of the pages, but my own experience in novel writing and the memoirish writing I do on Substack is that the story has to move through us and not be forced into a narrative.
As a reader, I really wanted to know what was so bad in the reading of the woman who discovered 23 years of infidelity. I mean, really? Since 1949, the guy has a side hustle? Was her writing just journal boo hooing?
This piece picked up when you voiced your doubts about the lug nut husband. Three possibilities ran through my mind: early onset something; early onset affair; early onset malevolence.
Commenting on Moody Women. Great descriptions and staying in scene. It is getting easier to recognize scene beginning and end. A problem for me. I can relate to the visuals of Fran and see her as a fleshed out character. The foreshadow of the hard metal and black diamond in her wedding ring against the wood of the table is brilliant. For me, It seems that the chapter slows down with the description of bad writing from the group, credentials, and the portraits of women. Maybe I'm missing something, but Is there a way to tie these bits into the dilemma of Jennifer's life. The story picks right up again when the women have tea and share about their lives.
It makes perfect sense to me she would reach out to her close friend to confide her worries; I would do the same. So this was believable, relatable. The dialogue and the beats so natural. I appreciated that at this point in the narrative we get the history of her marriages and the role of therapy in each. That was context that got me further invested because this fascinates me, the whole idea of whether a marriage can be saved or whether, as they say legally, it is irretrievably broken (in my situation, when I was ready for therapy, my ex wasn't --for years he wasn't, and when he was finally ready, I had moved on...) As for the Nike exec's book, a chief problem I suspect in the way the book is described is she is writing from the political not the personal, that it is a polemic rather than a personal narrative with the concrete, personal, vulnerable details that allow us to see her pain. Writing from the head not the heart. Writing perhaps to settle a score. It's hard to say without reading any of the pages, but my own experience in novel writing and the memoirish writing I do on Substack is that the story has to move through us and not be forced into a narrative.
The second time I read chapter 3, I noticed how the ring description may have been mirroring the state of the marriage and I like the skill of that.
As a reader, I really wanted to know what was so bad in the reading of the woman who discovered 23 years of infidelity. I mean, really? Since 1949, the guy has a side hustle? Was her writing just journal boo hooing?
This piece picked up when you voiced your doubts about the lug nut husband. Three possibilities ran through my mind: early onset something; early onset affair; early onset malevolence.
Commenting on Moody Women. Great descriptions and staying in scene. It is getting easier to recognize scene beginning and end. A problem for me. I can relate to the visuals of Fran and see her as a fleshed out character. The foreshadow of the hard metal and black diamond in her wedding ring against the wood of the table is brilliant. For me, It seems that the chapter slows down with the description of bad writing from the group, credentials, and the portraits of women. Maybe I'm missing something, but Is there a way to tie these bits into the dilemma of Jennifer's life. The story picks right up again when the women have tea and share about their lives.