This literary pas de deux from the veteran author and Pulitzer winner Butler is ostensibly set in Paris in 2020. That\u2019s where novelist Amanda Duval and literary scholar Howard Blevins had hoped to revisit the places they first met in 1968\u2014before they married, divorced, and remarried back in the U.S. But with Covid forcing everyone indoors, the novel largely takes place in their rented apartment, and more precisely in their memories. To pass the time, they encourage each other to write and share stories about their courtship, split, and reconciliation. Litigating the past is fraught for the two\u2014an infidelity, acknowledged but not discussed in detail, prompted their divorce\u2014but Butler\u2019s goal is more subtle than staging he-said-she-said debates. Rather, by having them write out their recollections, Butler plays with their distinct styles\u2014Amanda more literary, Howard more bluntly factual\u2014to show that while a couple might agree on the facts, their meaning and the intensity of feelings they evoke can differ substantially. There are silly moments that feel forced, like Howard\u2019s tryst with a fellow modernist scholar determined to precisely reenact the closing pages of Ulysses, but Butler\u2019s approach is generally sober, built on less explosive vignettes about the couple\u2019s past romances and relationship with their daughter. While the overall mood is generally tender and affectionate\u2014the two are in their 70s and disinclined to fly solo again\u2014Butler also adds enough tension to suggest that a marriage involves navigating and reconciling a lot of miscommunication, regardless of the couple\u2019s stage in life.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This literary pas de deux from the veteran author and Pulitzer winner Butler is ostensibly set in Paris in 2020. That\u2019s where novelist Amanda Duval and literary scholar Howard Blevins had hoped to revisit the places they first met in 1968\u2014before they married, divorced, and remarried back in the U.S. But with Covid forcing everyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}