Click here to listen to the interview with the author.

Reading “The Story of a Marriage” might be described as eating a foreign dish – you prod the outside, you wonder what’s really in there and then reluctantly take a bite. If you like it, you don’t stop until you’re finished and then go back for seconds. If you don’t like it, you swallow the bite and push the rest of it away.

“The Story of a Marriage”, written by Andrew Sean Greer, tells the tale of an African American couple Holland and Pearlie Cook, taking place in the backdrop of 1953 San Francisco and narrated by the wife Pearlie. When Charles “Buzz” Drumer – Holland’s former boss and fellow World War II soldier – comes into town and divulges a shocking revelation, Pearlie’s idyllic life is shattered. Now she has to decide what the best course is for not only the two of them, but for her Polio-stricken son.

The first-person narrative and romantic descriptive language read more like a three-hour monologue more than anything else. For those who prefer dialogue-filled novels, it becomes rather dull at times, and often you have to go back when you realized you read half a page without absorbing any of it. This makes it rather inconsistent, where when you get to the meaty bits, you can’t put it down, and other times you have thick bits of fat that you don’t know where the author is going with it.

Greer writes from the eyes of Pearlie Cook so well it’s hard to believe that the author is both white and male. Pearlie is the kind of character you’d like to sit down with, enjoy an ice tea together and find out the details of her life. Though she explains her actions well, you still like to ask her more. The other characters, though not as in-depth as the narrator, are nevertheless intriguing more by their actions than their words.

“The Story of a Marriage” might not be for some, but readers – married or not – looking for something new will find that and more in this story.

Kyrie Eberhart can be reached at [email protected]