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A Novel I Loved

 This fall, I "discovered" the novelist Hilma Wolitzer, who is now around ninety years old.


Wolitzer raised a daughter, Meg, who is quite famous because of "The Wife" (which became a Glenn Close movie).

Hilma Wolitzer began writing seriously in her forties, and her career continues to this day. The story that is generating buzz--"The Great Escape"--basically recalls Hilma's own struggle with Covid. (Hilma lost her husband of several decades during the pandemic.) 

"The Great Escape" immediately takes off; the narrator recalls how, for many years, she would try to initiate sex in the morning, before the kids ran in. But, in the octogenarian phase, the narrator would just check to see if her husband was still breathing. This was enough for gratitude. A living spouse, and then another wonderful mundane day--"breakfast, vitamins, bills, argument, blood pressure pills, lunch, doctor, cholesterol meds, dinner, phone, TV, sleeping pills, sleep, waking"--could begin.....

As much as I liked "The Great Escape," I liked Wolitzer's recent novel, "An Available Man," even more. That's the story of a widower, in his late fifties, who begins to date again. The dates force him to confront several topics--plastic surgery, swinging marriages, cheating, NYRB profiles, certain style questions--and he becomes a new, slightly tougher person. Nothing is forced or sentimental; it's sort of a low-stakes novel; but I was pulled into Wolitzer's fictional New York, and I liked spending time with the widower.

Wolitzer is aware of how strange and wondrous life is, just under the surface: "There were running death jokes in our family....My father driving past a cemetery: EVERYONE IS DYING TO GET IN. My mother: DEATH MUST BE GREAT--NO ONE EVER COMES BACK. My MIL: WHEN ONE OF US DIES, I'M MOVING TO FLORIDA. That would have been funny except that she actually meant it....."

I was happy to explore Wolitzer's writing over the past few weeks.

https://electricliterature.com/the-great-escape-by-hilma-wolitzer/
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