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    The Story of a Marriage: A Novel
    The Story of a Marriage: A Novel
    The Story of a Marriage: A Novel
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Story of a Marriage: A Novel

    Written by Andrew Sean Greer

    Narrated by S. Epatha Merkerson

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    "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. All the certainties by which Pearlie has lived and tried to protect her family are thrown into doubt. Does she know her husband at all? And what does the stranger want in return for his offer of a hundred thousand dollars? For six months in 1953 young Pearlie Cook struggles to understand the world around her, and most especially her husband, Holland.

    Pearlie's story is a meditation not only on love but also on the effects of war, with one war recently over and another coming to a close. Set in a climate of fear and repression–political, sexual, and racial–The Story of a Marriage from bestselling author Andrew Sean Greer, portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it. Lyrical and surprising, The Story of a Marriage looks back at a period that we tend to misremember as one of innocence and simplicity.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateApr 29, 2008
    ISBN9781427204639
    Author

    Andrew Sean Greer

    Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was a Today book club selection and received a California Book Award. He lives in San Francisco.

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    Reviews for The Story of a Marriage

    3.5/5

    295 ratings40 reviews

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    • 5/5
      It's the early '50s and Pearlie Cook is a young housewife and mother, married to her childhood sweetheart, but her illusion of happiness is shattered when a man claiming to be an old friend of her husband's shows up on her doorstep one day.I loved this book SO MUCH. I don't even know what to say about it. All I can do is flail happily. Like The Taqwacores, this is a story about people of color (apparently some people thought this was a "twist" in the story, but idk, there are plenty of hints before he comes right out and says it) written by a white guy, and I think he did a good job. He also did an amazing job portraying the delicate relationships between Pearlie and Holland and Buzz. I love Pearlie and Buzz's sort-of friendship, and how Holland is a mystery to both of them. Everything felt completely believable to me. I saw a lot of "why the hell did Pearlie do what she did?" type reviews on Amazon, but I thought it was perfectly obvious and made sense. She didn't do it for the money. She did it because she loved Holland and thought that was the only way for him to be happy (and because she didn't feel she could cross a rich white man). I loved the way the secrets came out, so many layers in such a short book.I already have another book of his on my shelf to read, and I'd really like to get my hands on his short stories, too. Definitely a new favorite author.
    • 5/5
      Greer is a master of the human soul. Must read
    • 4/5
      Excellent literary novel that deals with relationships, race, social status and sexual mores. Charles "Buzz" Drumer shows up one afternoon 6 years into the marriage of Pearlie and Holland; Buzz knew Holland in WW 2. The miscues, miscommunications, unvoiced fears and hopes of the 3 adults result in several surprise turns in the story.
    • 4/5
      It’s impossible to discuss "The Story of a Marriage" without introducing spoilers. Let’s just say it’s about relationships, surprises, long-time-ago San Francisco, and a good read. This novel is best appreciated if you don't know much more than that once you start reading.
    • 4/5
      "We think we know the ones we love." This is the opening line from The Story of Marriage and sets the tone of the book. Pearlie is a young woman, living with her husband and child in relative happiness. One day, a knock on the door changes everything as an old friend of her husband brings with him some secrets she would have prepared to stay buried. It's hard to tell you much more of the plot without giving the book away but really the book pivots around what Pearlie will do for the man she loves and the lies we will tell believing we are protecting people.The book is very well written. At 190+ pages it's quite short compared to many current offerings but it allows just enough time for the story to play out. Andrew Sean Greer writes in a clear plain fashion and manages to throw in enough shocking moments to keep you in suspense. Whilst it isn't exactly profound, it is thought provoking to a degree.I would read this again and I would recommend it as a read. Don't expect anything life changing but do enjoy a very pleasant book about love and duty.
    • 4/5
      I gave this book an extra half-point for effort in introducing a broad number of issues in post-WW II society. Discrimination was a fact of life and the book covers the topic on many fronts including racial, sexual orientation, McCarthyism (political), and pacifism (conscientious objectors). It also shows that a marriage can hide many secrets and need not be perfect to be in many way, a good marriage.I didn't give the book a higher rating because the prose doesn't flow well, there are some simply awful metaphors, and in an effort to keep the books secrets unexposed, the reader can feel lost at times.I work in a library, and when the book "The Great Starvation Experiment" came across my desk, I decided to read it since I felt Greer had certainly used this as one reference for his novel's background. It turned out to be an interesting read and indeed, elaborated one of the novel's more interesting and less known historical themes.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      so insightful and lyrical. enjoyed the plot with the play of choices given to the characters .
    • 4/5
      This book has more surprises in the first 50 pages than I have read in a very long time. This is the unique story of Holland and Pearlie Cook, set primarily in California beginning just at the end of WWII. Very unique, compelling. Asks the question, how well do we really know the people we love?
    • 4/5
      Such a bland title for what turns out to be a marriage characterized by the most unusual challenges. Andrew Sean Greer writes beautifully ("The driver struck a match and we were briefly bathed in that warm light before he touched it, gently, to his cigarette and then, when that was lit, thermometer-shook the match to darkness, leaving only a smoky question mark."), though the middle of this short novel has its draggy spots. Nonetheless, in coming to the end, I found the story very moving. How true it is that so many relationships are filled with misunderstanding. Yet love can and does mysteriously abide. Who ultimately can explain it?
    • 5/5
      Pearlie Cook is quietly married to Holland. They live contentedly in the Sunset district of San Francisco with their son, in a house next to the Pacific Ocean. Holland is breath-stoppingly handsome, and Pearlie never quite understands why he married her, despite their having been closest childhood friends. One day Buzz Drumer, a white man and WWII “buddy” of Holland’s shows up at her door and insinuates himself into their family.Pearlie, who has long believed that Holland has a heart condition from his shocking war experiences, devotes herself to shielding him from the bruises of life. Then she learns from Buzz that he and Holland had met in the military psychiatric hospital and that they had been lovers. Now he wants Holland back, and he’s prepared to pay.Greer’s story of the taboos and racism of mid-century America unfolds delicate as a flower in a gentle parting of petals, but the sense of foreboding and perhaps doom pervades in his atmospheric prose and the telling incident that feel secretive. Yet, Greer holds nothing back, warning us from the opening of the book what kind of story he is going to tell us, “We think we know the ones we love, and though we should not be surprised to find that we don’t, it is heartbreak nonetheless.”This is a unique American Gothic tale with balanced overtones of shattering betrayal and ultimately, exquisite kindness. It is a book about the lengths people will go to avoid becoming cannon fodder in war, about the silent depths with which they love one another, and about the width of one man’s “curious” human heart.A best read of the year. Now want to read Greer’s earlier novel, "The Confessions of Max Tivoli."
    • 1/5
      I found this book to be quite silly. The characters, especially the main character Pearlie, an African American woman, are unbelievable. There are some interesting tidbits about San Francisco in the mid-fifties, but the storyline is preposterous. I had read Max Tivoli and liked it, but this book is a groaner. If it was a movie it would qualify for Mystery Science Theater commentary.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed [book:The Confessions of Max Tivoli], so when I heard that Andrew Sean Greer had a new book on its way, I jumped at the chance to read the galley. I'm so glad I did!

      This book is wonderful - really a four-and-a-half star book. You know I love a good twist, and this book has not just one, but two (which obviously I am not going to give away, except to say that this is not a mystery in any way). Greer continues to use his command of language to craft a compelling narrative about the bonds between people, their fragilities, strengths, & complexities. I'm just saying, read the book. Seriously.
    • 4/5
      Exactly what the title says. I listened to this beautiful description of an incredibly convoluted story. The author pulled so many things together as he wound this cobweb into a complex pattern. The story went along so gently but with so much sadness mixed with the plain ol' living of lives, day by day, watching the changes take place both inside and outside from Pearlie's point of view.
    • 5/5
      Beautifully written story of , yes, a marriage - one that is strange to say the least and then the stranger appears and turns everything upside down- relationships of all manner are dealt with and thigs that are thought and said many older people will recognise - Poignant
    • 4/5
      Carefully crafted, internal story with narration by only one character, i found the book to be full of insight, but the action a bit too slow for me. Beautifully written.
    • 4/5
      I really wanted to love this book, having loved Greer's "Confessions of Max Tivoli". But I have to be honest. While I didn't dislike it, I didn't love it either, and I can't put my finger on why exactly that is. Looking back after finishing the novel, I can appreciate the way the story was put together & how the plot was revealed gradually. But listening to the audio, my mind easily wandered & at times I had trouble really following what was going on. The pace of the novel was a little slow to begin with, and I think the reader in this case compounded that fact. To be fair, I think I would've enjoyed this more with book in hand, versus audio, in order to fully appreciate the lyrical writing & to gain an overall better appreciation of the storyline.
    • 4/5
      This is a hypnotic period-piece of a novel with a series of twists that shift the reader's perceptions.
    • 5/5
      The Story of a Marriage is one of those rare books where the prose outshines a very good plot. Simply put, Greer's writing is why people read (or should read). Post WWII America, complex relationships, and sexuality are entertwined in this novel as the author takes the reader on a emotionally complex roller coaster of a ride. Like all good roller coasters, you hate for the ride to end. What is love? What is the price of love? Do actions speak louder than words? These are the kinds of superficial questions that are probed much deeper through this impactful book. I am glad to add a new favorite writer to my "must read" list.
    • 4/5
      I chose this book originally because of all the positive buzz I heard about it. I was happy to see when I received it that it was set in San Francisco. Consequently, I saved it for a month so that I could take it along with us on our anniversary trip to SF. We are here in SF now. I started it yesterday on the plane and finished it last night.It was the perfect book for this trip. Of course its setting in SF is fun, as we visited some of the places mentioned in the book. But, more than that, the book looks at the idea of marriage and love and relationships and commitment. Greer is a master of ambiguity, as is life, so his book perfectly reflects both the despair and the joy that marriage and relationships can bring.
    • 4/5
      Pearlie Cook is a woman living with her husband and a four-year-old son in a small house in the Sunset district of San Francisco. She lives simply until she faces an unexpected visitor from the past. Suddenly, her marriage is shaken by its roots, and she is forced into making some radical decisions about her life.Having read and loved Andrew Sean Greer's [The Confessions of Max Tivoli], I came into this book with high expectations. I found myself floundering through the first half of this book, being confused as to what was going on. The action moved between five main characters, but not as smoothly as I would have wanted. I proceeded slowly. Then suddenly, about two-thirds of the way through the book, I was pulled deeply into the story and swept up by its lyrical writing.Of note is the fact that certain important traits of the characters were not revealed until later in the book. Those revelations (no spoilers here!) fit into the story in an interesting way, particularly in relation the time setting (1953). This jarred me into taking more notice of what the author was trying to say.The end of the story was both beautiful and emotional. I had to stop along the way, though, to jot down some memorable lines. I even caught myself deciding exactly how I wanted the story to end before reaching its actual conclusion. I did appreciate how the author constructed the ending, reaching into many years later to see the outcome of decisions made a long time ago.
    • 5/5
      Love story set at the beginning of wwii between a boy and a girl. The boy goes away to war and has a white male lover. The lover comes back and spends six months convincing Pearlie that Holland needs to be with him (Buzz), Poignant, filled with rich real characters. I would recommend this book and may be reading it again for book club.
    • 3/5
      Read this book with a notebook and pen handy! There were so many phrases I wanted to capture, but the story moved along so quickly, I never wanted to put the book down to record them. Excellent, quick read that offers a lot to think about when it is over.
    • 4/5
      Pearlie Cook is a housewife in San Francisco post-World War II. She lives in a small house with her husband Holland and young son who has polio. Pearlie knew Holland when they were both growing up in the South, was his girlfriend back home before he went into the war. When she arrived in San Francisco, she met him again entirely by accident, and it was not long before he told her that he needed her to marry him.I was a bit apprehensive when Pearlie married Holland, because it really didn’t seem that she knew him at all, which given the rest of the book is probably exactly what I should have been feeling. Holland doesn’t talk much about his time in the war, so Pearlie really is not expecting it when Buzz comes to their front door, claiming to be a friend of Holland’s from when he was in the army. Even less expected than Buzz’s presence, however, is what he will tell Pearlie and the sacrifice he will ask of her.Initially I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel about this book. There is a sort of dreamy, far-off quality about the story, particularly in the beginning and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to identify with any of the characters because of it. However, Greer’s beautiful, lyrical writing soon drew me into the story. It made sense for the novel to have such a dreamy quality, because much of what happened seemed surreal to Pearlie.This is a wonderfully done work of literary fiction. If you stick primarily with contemporary fiction and don’t venture much into literary fiction this may not quite work for you, but if you enjoy literary fiction I highly suggest you give this a read.
    • 5/5
      “Holland and I had talked about our friends and our childhoods and movies and books and politics—we had agreed and disagreed and had our fights and merry moments over a beer—but I think it’s fair to say we had never spoken honestly in all ours lives.” This quote from A Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer prettily sums up the story’s central conflict. The narrator, Pearlie a young mother and wife to her high school sweetheart, Holland grapples with her marriage in 1950’s San Francisco. She says, “I loved you like a field on fire,” in reference to Holland, and yet her marriage and commitments are tested by the appearance of a dapper stranger.It does the novel a disservice to reveal any more about the plot, as its secrets are revealed in well timed waves. In fact the book’s only draw back is its brevity as its simple prose endears readers page by page. It’s an unconventional love story written with graceful restraint and vibrant characters. The Story of a Marriage is as perfect a novel as any I've read.
    • 4/5
      This is an incredibly well written book. It reads like lyrical fiction and feels like a biography. I couldn't believe it was a novel rather than an actual autobiography. The storylines are complex and expertly developed, and it gives insight to a period most people here in the UK have little consideration for. Really interesting and excellent reading. It took me time to get into it and I read it piecemeal over a few months. I would recommend it to everyone.
    • 1/5
      It seems this story has polarized readers. Some love it, while others intensely dislike the book. I fall into the latter camp. I thought I was really going to like it initially, but then the story went way over the top into unbelievability for me. I found myself disliking it more and more as the pages progressed. It’s really almost impossible to speak about the issues I had with the book without giving away some huge spoilers, but I will give you a taste of what it’s about.Holland and Pearlie Cook are childhood sweethearts with a son and a dog that doesn’t bark. Everything is going along fine until one day Buzz, a man from Holland’s past, shows up at the door and changes everything. Set in the 50’s and San Francisco.
    • 3/5
      This is a well-written book that contains many surprises and an insight into the dark side of the innocence of the post-WWII world. The three main characters are an enigma to me, especially Holland. After the premise of the relationships among the three is revealed, I wondered repeatedly why Pearlie didn't simply talk wtih Holland for confirmation or denial. I didn't see any depth to these characters or any development of the relationships. That said, it is well written and an interesting view of the 1950s.
    • 5/5
      What a wonderful book! I recommended this book to my mother and found I really couldn't say what it was about because to describe the story line is to give away the heart of the book. I simply said it's a story of Pearlie and Holland Cook's marriage set in San Francisco in the 1950s and it contains more than a few worthwhile surprises. To say this is about racism or sexuality is to strip it of it's grace.
    • 5/5
      Every once in a while a book comes along that is so good but packs so much surprise that you don't want to even talk about what it is about. You just want to say 'READ THIS!' and thrust it into your friends' hands. Greer recounts this story of a marriage and so much more with poignancy and beautiful turn of phrase. Yet this does not detract from the underlying tension carried throughout his novel. Go get your copy, your sunscreen, lawn chair and beverage. The book will grab you from the first sentence and not let you go until the last. Then march over to your neighbor's house and say 'READ THIS!' I guarantee you will want them to, so that you can talk about this fantastic book.
    • 4/5
      If you're looking for a short, atmospheric novel to read this summer, I recommend Andrew Greer's latest book, "The Story of a Marriage," which recounts the story of one family's domestic crisis in post-war California, 1953.Greer's tale, which follows the lives of the Cook family (Pearl, Holland, and their young toddler, Sonny) as they settle into the newly developed Sunset district of San Francisco, contains several well-placed surprises that I won't give away here. In the course of the story, the author makes it abundantly clear that the 1950's appear "golden" only if they are viewed through the rosy lens of selective memory. If you enjoyed membership in a favored class -- white, politically orthodox, and heterosexual -- the decade had its high points. Otherwise, not so much.Greer weaves the darker threads of the 50's -- polio outbreaks, communist witch hunts, the Korean War, and the ever present threat of nuclear annihilation -- into his story with language that is evocative, yet understated. He is at his best when he addresses societal restrictions that suppressed personal freedom and dignity. Pearl and Holland live in a world where elegant grandmothers in their Sunday hats, eager to celebrate a special occasion, must request directions to the "special area" of the tea room reserved for blacks. Gay men are rounded up in private club raids and imprisoned for criminal indecency. Interracial couples must assess when and where they can be seen in public without risking physical injury. Conscientious objectors and draft dodgers are run out of their hometowns and forced to relocate in order to reclaim any semblance of a normal life. Next door neighbors spy on each other and suppress their political opinions. Unhappy wives and husbands consider clandestine murder as a preferable alternative to the public shame of a divorce. A repressed blanket of desperation smothers Pearl and Holland's suburban neighborhood as thoroughly as the fog that rolls in from San Francisco Bay each morning.As indicated by the book's title, Pearl and Holland's marriage crisis forms the crux of the novel. Pearl, Holland, and some integral third parties are all casting about for some measure of freedom, some unfettered definition of their own personhood, throughout the book. Although the novel is written in Pearl's voice, I think that Greer's depiction of Holland's internal struggle offers the more subtle and deep exploration of human nature. Holland is portrayed as a handsome man -- the stunning kind of "handsome" that necessarily affects every aspect of his existence. It is his gift, and his curse. Greer writes (in Pearl's voice): "By being what everyone wanted him to be -- being the husband, the flirt, the beautiful object, and the lover -- by pleasing us all in giving us his gracious smile, he had tortured each of us when it did not turn our way. Beauty is forgiven everything except its absence from our lives, and the effort to return all loves at once must have broken him."Other characters in the novel seem to have some idea of who they want to be and how they want to escape the box that the mid-20th century has constructed around them. Holland, on the other hand, has lost all sense of himself after years of existing as no more than a mirror image of other people's desires. Everyone has attempted to employ his beauty and use it to actualize their own "dream narrative." He has been a chameleon for so long that he is hard pressed to know his own heart's desire, and the choice he eventually makes may surprise you.This is a good book on many levels -- I recommend it.