When was the last time you read a book you couldn’t put down?
As the year draws to a close and the “Best-of-2019” lists roll out, I thought I’d share three of my recent favorites: three women, The Silver Star, and If the Oceans Were Ink. Today I’ll begin with three women, which kept me up way past bedtime for several nights in a row.
My cat, Polly, and three books I couldn’t put down
Lisa Taddeo spent eight years interviewing subjects in different parts of the country about their sex lives, but the resulting narrative is as much about gender politics as it is about sex. The first woman, Maggie, is only seventeen. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, with her loving but troubled parents. Her cool, handsome English teacher encourages her to confide in him about her problems at home, and the relationship allegedly progresses from after-school chats to nightly phone conversations to bedroom trysts at his house when his wife is away. When he dumps her, Maggie—being the person with less power in the relationship—falls into a major depression. Several years later, she has no degree, no career, no boyfriend, no direction—and her seducer is named North Dakota’s Teacher of the Year. Anger kindled, she decides to call him out in court.
Lina, who lives in a suburb somewhere in Indiana, has been married twenty years to a man who won’t even kiss her on the mouth. Lonely, bored, and subject to panic attacks, she strikes up an affair with her high-school boyfriend, who misused her then but now makes her feel “like a girl and not part of the house.” Lina can’t get enough of the guy, who keeps her on tenterhooks because he’s also married, but feeling guilty about cheating on his wife.
The third woman has advantages that Lisa and Maggie lack: a slender body, striking good looks, and professional success as a restauranteur in the super-swank enclave of Newport, Rhode Island. Sloane is married to her business partner, a chef who likes to watch her have sex with other people, all of whom he picks. Sometimes it’s a man, sometimes a woman. He often joins in. After several years of this arrangement, Sloane—who acquiesced to something that made her uncomfortable at first—begins to wonder where her husband’s desire ends and hers begins.
Taddeo doesn’t shy away from rough language or explicit descriptions of sexual acts (which, because they’re repeated so often, get rather boring). If that kind of thing upsets you, you’ll want to pass on this book. I have to say, though, that Taddeo is a wonderful writer. Her style is edgy and immediate, occasionally verging on the poetic; but she tells the women’s stories in a neutral manner, allowing us to come to our own conclusions and to reflect on our own sexual histories.
The stories are woven together, which drives the narrative forward. To one degree or another, the women all struggle to assert themselves as equal partners in skewed relationships; but it is Maggie, the least powerful, who tries the hardest. Her downward spiral reminded me of myself after a relationship I had with an older professor. We had a one-night stand that I saw as the beginning of our life together and he saw as a revenge fuck after a fight with his girlfriend. Like Maggie, I got depressed; but I eventually joined the Peace Corps, went to work in Africa, and re-centered myself—perhaps easier to do (though it took me years) when you’re in your twenties instead of your teens. Maggie’s story sheds a powerful light on the vulnerability of people who’ve become erotically entangled with someone who’s older, more experienced, and more powerful than they are.
I couldn’t put three women down because I wanted each woman to shake off the hold her man had over her—Maggie’s alleged abuser, Lina’s married lover, Sloane’s voyeuristic husband. I was rooting for all three to put their pieces together and move forward with their lives—but most of all I was rooting for Maggie.
Next, read Books You Can’t Put Down, Part 2.