The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

If you aren’t already a fan of Jeffrey Eugenides’ earlier work, particularly Middlesex, resolve to make 2012 the year you become a fan. In fact, Middlesex was such a major work for me (and I am not alone in this opinion) that I have been anxiously awaiting this novel for years. It was worth the wait. The Marriage Plot was a great book, and a worthy read.  My chief complaint is that it’s just not Middlesex. It’s like having one true great love and he leaves you, but his brother comes to town.  Great, you think. Equally handsome, equally smart, equally wonderful, this wonderful newcomer has potential to rock your world again. But it won’t and can’t. In fact, it can never be anything but second-best.  But, oh, what a lovely way to spend some time. The Marriage Plot did give me the tingle of a great read,  and I loved the main characters. When the story lingered a little too long on Leonard’s mental illness, I was sooo not interested. The novel is at its best when it keeps the story on Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell, the college graduates around whom the story revolves. Each is likable in his or her own way, but supremely likable in the way that Eugenides uses them to conjure the drama of coming of age.  They were people I had either known or wished I knew in college—-smart, complicated, flawed, and naive. Eugenides evokes this time in life so crisply that it feels like no effort at all to return. This one deserves its spot with you curled up by the fire.