The translator wife of a relatively successful non-fiction author is mourning the sudden death of her husband in Greece. The real story though, told by the wife whose name is never disclosed is of a separation. Her sudden arrival to Greece slowly searching to meet her husband was the result of an ultimatum of her mother-in-law, who sent her there to find her son, apparently on a research trip documeting mourning rituals. The meeting between the two never takes place, as he is murdered. The case will be closed after a year, with the culprit never being found.
Before arriving to Greece, the wife wanted a divorce, as the couple secretly separated for month. Upon arrival from Greece back to London, she is a widow, with a rich inheritance involved in various projects dedicated to her ex-husband. She is mourning. 'Sometimes it is comforting to think that his death was a result of his being in the world, rather than his death having occured entirely at random, as if erasing a presence that had already failred to leave its mark, that had not insisted sufficiently upon his life: that it would be truly be as though he had vanished into thin air'.
The wife's account is sometimes confusing, ambiguous, from the position of someone who assumed a shadow role, without necessarily being asked to. In fact, during the book-long monologue we are shared a limited amount of information about her, her eventual motivations and life. There are some references about her work - French translator - a relatively safe financial status, a 8-year difference between her and her husband. Everything is about her husband, whose infidelities created drama for a young lady during his short stay in Greece too, and might have been the cause of his death, but her absence although she is the one through whose eyes we are told the story, is not playing in the advantage of the story as such.
Personally, the moment the death of the husband was announced, was like a welcomed stroke, as the letargy was almost complete and was not sure if I really have to keep reading this book. But it did not change the story too much, after all. Still, there is not clear why exactly this marriage of opposites ended - and started at all, why she accepted to just go to follow her husband although she knew well that things were finished anyway between them. Also the sudden long mourning after his death is a bit pathetic and extra-dramatic. She was engaged to a friend of the husband, after all.
It may be an apology of mediocrity, of low life, of a woman without features. Maybe. But it's a pitty for the writing potential of the author that the characters are so lost in words, words about feelings, about 'what ifs', but completely failing to be real.
Rating: 3 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review
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