Friday, September 20, 2013

What I'm Reading

 
 
I am not sure how I knew about this book, but I bought a copy of it for one cent (plus shipping) via Amazon. It's the story of a woman who has been married to a very famous author for 35 years where the whole marriage was about him. The book opens as they are flying to Helsinki so he can be awarded some big literary award and she decides she's going to leave him... and then the book goes back in time to his childhood, her life, how they met, their early years of marriage. That's where I am now.
 
I don't know this author, but she is really a wonderful writer, and I've enjoyed it so far.
 
One odd thing is that since I bought this book as a used copy, it has writing in it -- the person who owned this book first must have been in a bad marriage... every time there's a negative description of the husband and his personality she underlines it and puts stars and exclamation points. Whenever the wife is presented in a sympathetic way, she also notes that.
 
I am basically reading this book and a mystery at once. Who owned this book? Who was her husband? Did they ever get divorced?

3 comments:

Barbara said...

I once discovered beautiful careful handwriting on the second to last page of a used book which said something like "Dear lord, please give me the strength to deal with my angry and abusive husband." It was like there was a ghost in the room. So disturbing that I had to get rid of the book.

Pat said...

Wow, I can understand that because this woman's comments and underlinings do weigh on me and they're not even anything that bad. I feel as if she has finally found someone in the author who UNDERSTANDS her and feels her pain and puts words to her feelings.

Mary Mc said...

It really is a personal connection to the past.