LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
BOOKED Solid |
Reviewed by Rebecca James |
The Half-life of Happiness, John Casey, 1998
Exactly how long can happiness last before we screw up beyond repair? In his novel The Half-life of Happiness, John Casey suggests that happiness is really about the future, that people who believe in a future pleasure will be happier in the presentbut not necessarily years later. In fact, perhaps they actually set themselves up for disappointment when that dream is not realized or people do not live up to their original expectations. Casey's characters struggle to create their own versions of joy as life takes a series of unexpected shifts. Edith Reardon begins her reflections on her family's most chaotic year with the "blithe" musings of her father, a respected, if off-beat, Virginia lawyer. Mike is a man suddenly aware of his own satisfaction with life; he is drowsy, well stuffed with an eclectic group of friends, two young daughters, and a talented filmmaker wife. Mike, Joss, and the girls share their lives with the two couplesclose friendswho live in the small cottages on their wooded land. Mike surveys his well-ordered world with the benevolence of a man who can afford both patience and sympathy for those under his care. What he is about to realize, however, is that while Mike has struggled for order and stability, the artists, academics, and other creative souls he relies on have grown away from the safe haven he established, out of the neat arena of the seven-acre Reardon world. The Half-life of Happiness is an intimate exploration of the complex but enduring fabric of human relationships. Through the eyes of their daughters, we enter the private confusion of Mike and Joss Reardon the last year of their marriage. The optimism that began their relationship over a decade ago has settled into routinea safety net for Mike, a death sentence for the spinning, creative Joss. As Joss puts it, "eros has waned." A friend's suicide drives them further apart; they are set in the roles they have established for themselves in the marriage, trapped behind layers of unfinished arguments. Joss turns to her growing relationship with Bonnie, a woman who lives with her boyfriend on the Reardon's land. The two women become lovers, but manage to keep their relationship a secret from the rest of the group for months. When they finally are discovered, the little family of friends is torn apart. Mike grew up in a family of politicians and swore he would never involve himself in the mess of a campaign, but the Democratic Party officials approach him at just the right time. Wheeling from the loss of his friend and his wife's affair, Mike impulsively decides to run for a congressional seat. The entire family, Joss included, quickly become consumed by the daily obligations of a political family. Nora, the more outspoken of the two girls, goes on the road with her father, tap-dancing, singing and sashaying into the hearts of the voters. Edith is left dazed with her mother and Joss is furious. Not only is Mike not putting up a fight about their divorce but he is also selling the family image to benefit his campaign. She agrees to keep up appearances and each mourns the loss of their friendship separately. "She'd done terrible things to him, and then she'd said terrible things to him, and he should be grateful because she'd torched her place in him, she'd burned it out clean and cauterized it. And now the dumb pig-brain in his faded blue shirt wouldn't do the same for her! He sat there being reasonable, actually being nice in his faded blue way, and then left the left-over marriage to her." The lack of a spark, the absence of anger is what frustrated Joss about Mike from the beginning. It must have also been a comfort to her over the years in a perverse way; her role in the marriage was to constantly be consumed by emotion and to continuously try to draw Mike out of his stable shell. Now, she has failed again to affect him at the coreso she thinksand she leaves unsatisfied and a little broken. Edith and Nora must look inside their adult selves to figure out what it was about the way their parents saw the world and each other that caused them to part so dramatically. Along the way, they discover that the "roly-poly optimism" Mike and Joss grew up with as post-depression babiesand passed on to their childrenleft little room for real-life disappointment. "You want people to be as good as they imagine they are. Don't make the same mistake Mom made about Dadshe thought she either had to believe his version of himself or blow it up. Let people have a few little vanities, a few follies." The two girls struggle to sort their own actions and dissatisfactions from those bestowed upon them by their parents. Casey attacks these complicated and raw subjects with humor and compassion. The relationships this family constructs are entertaining as well as enlightening; you may recognize people or roles from your own life before you are through. The Half-life of Happiness is smart, contemporary fiction from a writer well-versed in the human heart. Rebecca James is spending her summer in Rehoboth Beach reading, writing, and happily massaging at Baltimore Avenue's Spa by the Sea. She returns to Allentown, Pennsylvania in the fall. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 11, August 10, 2001. |