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There was a genuine weirdness for most of this that you look for in great literature. The novel is set in the 1950s. A typical middle class couple, Steve and Nancy, meet at a Long Island bar for a drink, before heading up to Maine -- it's Labor Day weekend, and the traffic sucks -- to pick up their two kids at summer camp. We are reminded repeatedly that 45 million people hit the roads on this weekend. (I was bit surprised at the number even in the 1950s.) That fact, along with overall 1950s reg
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Simenon packed so much into this slight work: driving along the east coast on a summer Friday, marital dynamics, frustrated masculinity, alcoholism, and the discontents of the good life in 50s America, especially New York. I gobbled it in one sitting.
And then: the wife's rape is both epiphany for the husband and is to serve as the catalyst for their improved, happier marriage. Faugh. My reaction is outrage. Even for a book of its time, this offends. ...more
And then: the wife's rape is both epiphany for the husband and is to serve as the catalyst for their improved, happier marriage. Faugh. My reaction is outrage. Even for a book of its time, this offends. ...more
Mar 23, 2013
Daisy
marked it as to-read
