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Amy Bloom: "I'll Be Right Here"

Amy Bloom's new novel is about a young woman, Lily, who finds herself married to a much older man. This isn't about love; the older man is lonely, and he wants to feel younger. Lily thinks this can work--until it really can't. She becomes intoxicated with rage. She begins to anticipate the man's next move, almost with eagerness, just so she can have something new to feel enraged about.


One day, Lily sets a tupperware container next to the leftovers. The man looks helpless, and he feebly pushes the tupperware halfway toward the ceramic plate. He looks at Lily with imploring eyes, and Lily says, "You are capable of dumping the food into the tupperware container." And the husband says, "This just isn't working." And he disappears from her life forever.

Later, Lily has a dizzying romance at an academic conference. But--like Simon in the story "Simon's Luck"--the man has a terrible accident. He dies on the road. Lily, now besieged with grief, enters a throuple. She assumes a spread eagle position and says, "Just do whatever you can. I'm very passive." She is lying about the passivity--but she can't invest any more energy in any particular arrangement, sexual or "non."

"The grief ebbs and flows, but I'm always, always in this tidal pool. I can't get out."

The other character who interests me is Anne, a female lawyer in an era that is mostly uninterested in female lawyers. When Anne begins to admit that she is gay, she knows she cannot go to her town's one gay hangout, because the *other* female lawyer (who is proudly, emphatically gay) will spot her and use the scandalous run-in as a tool for blackmail.

Anne tells her husband things aren't panning out--and the husband is unexpectedly, amazingly kind. (Because of this extraordinary kindness, Anne "will continue to invite Richard to family brunch for the next forty years.") Anne wants her new girlfriend to "keep things closeted"--it's just easier--and the girlfriend listens quietly. Finally, she speaks. "Nope. Goodbye. Give me a call if you rethink this."

(The estrangement lasts for one year.)

I don't think the structure of this novel is notably elegant, and at times I'm not really aware of "the stakes." Is there a plot? But, also, I don't really care. I enjoy Amy Bloom's characters. The book is like a fun, short meal with flawed, interesting people.

This one deserves a bit more than its current Kirkus review.
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