From Publishers Weekly
Fleming (Motherhood Deferred), a commentator for CNN and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, examines the marital angst that follows infidelity in the two novellas that make up her fiction debut. The conceit is simple: in the first story, "A Married Woman," she outlines the dilemma of the beautiful, reserved Caroline Betts, who knows instantly that her husband, William, is about to have a serious affair with April, the 20-something daughter of a friend of theirs. Caroline, who knows her husband well and is a hawk-eyed observer of his moods and expressions, slowly comes unhinged, realizing that the depth of his love for April may sink her marriage. In "A Married Man," Fleming takes a more lighthearted look at philandering, as protagonist David Sanderson cracks rueful jokes and comically acts out when he learns of wife Marcia's quick, casual interlude with a dinner-party guest. The funniest passages take place during the couple's therapy sessions with a Dr. Phil-style psychologist (coiner of such maxims as "you're as sick as your secrets") who has used his own infidelity to build a high-profile career. Fleming is a thoughtful, intelligent writer whose arch humor and dead-on dialogue suggest great potential for subsequent novels. The biggest problem with these novellas is the familiarity of the material; there are some clich‚s in both the plotting and characterization. Still, Fleming clearly has a knack for making the ups and downs of marital life deliciously entertaining.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Marriage is a duet, and what form is better suited to exploring its two-sided dynamics than paired novellas, one expressing a wife's point of view, the other a husband's, although Fleming complicates and deepens this approach by portraying not one but two marriages, each wracked by infidelity. In "A Married Woman," Caroline looks back on her long marriage to William as he lies in a coma, struggling with her memories both of their profoundly erotic love and of her terrible suffering in the wake of his affair with a friend of their daughter's. In "A Married Man," David is pitched into depression when the lovely and accomplished wife he worships and adores admits to a sexual tryst. As expected, journalist and television commentator Fleming, the author of
Motherhood Deferred (1994), is keenly attuned to social mores, particularly the impact feminism and self-help regimes have on marital relationships, but she also evinces remarkable insights into intimacy and betrayal. In each psychologically precise, beautifully structured tale, Fleming writes with extraordinary exactitude about sex, family life, loss, sorrow, the absurdities of a culture that reduces emotions to commodities, and most resoundingly, the balm and wounds of love.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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