A Today Show Summer Reads Pick

A Washington Post Book of the Year

“We think we know the ones we love.” So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect, and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship–how we can ever truly know another person.

It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful young housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset District in San Francisco, caring not only for her husband’s fragile health, but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep, and everything changes. Lyrical, and surprising, The Story of a Marriage is, in the words of Khaled Housseini, “a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect.”

“The Story of a Marriage is just that, the chronicle of one marriage, closely and elegantly examined . . . a plot that deepens as surprises explode unexpectedly and terrifyingly . . . It’s thoughtful, complex and exquisitely written.”?Carolyn See, The Washington Post

“A timeless story of conflicting loyalties, The Story of a Marriage has roots in the fiction of Poe’s era, but, fittingly enough, its plot is firmly anchored in the vividly described America of the early 1950s?a seemingly serene era whose submerged social, racial and political tensions would soon create their own disruptions and upheavals.”?Maggie Scarf, The New York Times Book Review

“From the beginning of this inspired, lyrical novel, the reader is pulled along by the attentive voice of Pearlie, a young African-American woman who travels west to San Francisco in search of a better life after growing up in a rural Kentucky town . . . Mr. Greer’s considerable gifts as a storyteller ascend to the heights of masters like Marilynne Robinson and William Trevor. In the hands of a lesser writer this narrative might have stumbled into a literary derivation of Annie Proulx’s now famous short story ‘Brokeback Mountain.’ But instead Mr. Greer creates a moving story that is all his own via an intimate view of Pearlie’s world, which has spun off its axis . . . Mr. Greer seamlessly choreographs an intricate narrative that speaks authentically to the longings and desires of his characters.”?S. Kirk Walsh, The New York Times

“‘We think we know the ones we love,’ begins Andrew Sean Greer’s bewitching third novel, The Story of a Marriage, a book whose linguistic prowess and raw storytelling power is almost disruptive to the reader. It’s too good to put down and yet each passage is also too good to leave behind . . . Greer’s short novel feels admirably worked over?like a long-simmered sauce. He near-brilliantly juxtaposes the nuances of love, sexual awakening and the sometimes suffocating sacrifices marriage demands against broader cultural observations about political turmoil, the physical and emotional effects of war, sexual repression and racism . . . His book is a perfect mix of what we seek from literature?captivating storytelling; a complex, finely tuned structure; stunning language; and astute observations about both the mundane intricacies of everyday relationships and society as a whole. Indeed, The Story of a Marriage is as much a war story as it is a love story.”?Deborah Vankin, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“The cleverest aspect of The Story of a Marriage is the way Greer uses the little dramas of private individuals to enact and embody the abstract political and social concerns of the country at large. In Greer’s novel, the lack of understanding between individuals, and our failure to grasp that very lack of understanding?the idea that, as Pearlie states more than once, ?We think we know the ones we love’?is made to stand for the lack of understanding between different communities within American society. The idea that ?what we love turns out to be a poor translation,’ for instance, is later brought back in a very different and much broader context . . . The Story of a Marriage is the story of an entire country of people who cannot speak to or hear one another. Pearlie’s husband, Holland, remains an enigma not only to her but also to the reader. Indeed, he rarely appears in the book, and when he is onstage, he does little. One comes to believe that he is one of those people whose presence is so minimal that one is never certain whether he is even in the room. He is, in a sense, the center of the book, the one whose actions set everything in motion, yet we never witness those actions directly and instead only hear about them, and the center feels like a hollow void. And Pearlie, too, seems somehow absent, as if, despite her role as first-person narrator, her real conversation with herself is taking place on a level to which we have no real access. (Though then again, perhaps it is Pearlie herself who has no access to her real thoughts and feelings.) . . . Greer’s focus in this novel is on those members of that generation who stayed on these shores, many of whom in their various ways suffered tremendously, sufferings that, in keeping with the book’s overall theme, frequently proved incomprehensible to others. Wives and girlfriends, mothers and fathers, draft dodgers, conscientious objectors (referred to in the slang of the day as ‘conchies’), all of these had their own particular stories of misery, heartbreak, isolation and occasionally madness. But these stories were often too painful, too terrible to tell. And even when their bearers managed to find the strength of will to articulate them, what they all too often found was that there was no one who would listen.”?Troy Jollimore, San Francisco Chronicle

“You could say that Andrew Sean Greer is back at it again, cleverly telling tales with his elegant sleight-of-hand. His last novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, set in early 20th century San Francisco, chronicled the adventures of said Max, who at birth resembles an old man but with each passing year grows younger in appearance, upending life-cycle assumptions and limitations. Greer’s new novel, The Story of a Marriage, doesn’t turn on a series of fantastic, suspension-of-belief plot points, but the unadorned title belies the startling narrative land mines Greer has seeded within the novel . . . Not quite 200 pages, the novel nonetheless has grand, sweeping ambitions, taking on war, race, sexual orientation, patriotism, the shifting notion of what it is to be an American. Holland’s past and Pearlie’s future are backdropped by a country still set off-balance by the atmosphere of war?still haunted by World War II, now buffeted by one in Korea. But it is the book’s surprise turns that create the biggest temblors?not just in the lives on the page but also within the reader’s minds . . . The book’s secrets are the true heart of the matter?like the secrets we keep in life in order, we think, to better manage it. They’re so important that in the advanced reader’s copy, Greer’s editor, Frances Coady, included a note that is a ‘plea’ not to ‘reveal its secrets to those readers coming after you.’”?Lynell George, Los Angeles Times

“Greer is a gifted writer bent on showing that, between the upheaval of World War II and the activism of the 1960s, the political and social issues stirred up in those decades didn’t disappear. They were just put out of view while the country took a breath. The Story of a Marriage is a neat little package about one couple that was forced to face them.”?Ellen Emry Heltzel, The Seattle Times

“The Story of a Marriage is firmly rooted in its period . . . The author also infuses the novel with a deep understanding about the fallibility of memory and perception, themes that make it seem timeless. Like most people, these characters have blind spots, and Greer portrays them with stunning focus.”?Sara Eckel, Time Out New York

“The Story of a Marriage asks in its quiet way what happens when an outsider f…