Michelle Huneven: "Bug Hollow"

 The star of Michelle Huneven's new novel is Sib, who resembles Olive Kitteridge from the Strout stories ("Olive Again," "Tell Me Everything," and so on).

Sib becomes an elementary-school teacher, and she feels frustrated by her colleagues' lack of ambition. She has a child, Sandro, who won't speak in class. She has another child who is capable of high-school math. She essentially bribes the math kid: I'll teach you algebra if you get Sandro to talk. Everyone wins.

Despite her talent, Sib is flawed. She is an alcoholic, and she shares mean stories at the family dinner table. Having learned the IQ results of every child on the street, she tells her own daughters that they are superior. Sib delights in a tale about the neighbors but does not seem to notice undercurrents of domestic abuse within that tale. Enraged by the world, Sib stops turning up for her annual cancer screening--so she gets cancer. She decides on suicide. Her daughter, Katie, is drowning in ambivalence, but she tries to be kind. "Thank you for encouraging me to do only the kind of work that I truly love." Sib cuts her off. "I don't have time for the gooeyness." She drinks her Dilaudid, etc. and dies.

In another corner of the novel, a woman, Yvette, is annoyed with her older husband, because career demands have led to a year in Saudi Arabia. It's not fun to be a woman among the Saudis. Yvette can't work; she had planned on a career, and she believes (correctly) that her spouse has given her a raw deal. Yvette acts out by having an affair--but her spouse notices the new detachment and reforms his behavior. Consciously or not, he "knows" that Yvette is now "sexed up." Almost a year later, when Yvette gives birth, she is certain that the child is "a wedlock child." He has to be. The timing wouldn't make sense if the child were an "extramarital child." It really wouldn't. It wouldn't. It would not, would not, would not.

I think that Michelle Huneven spent a portion of her twenties in AA. She has a gift for describing people who are divided against themselves. (In other words, Huneven can describe *all* people.) Like her friend Mona Simpson, Huneven has a straightforward prose style; there is nothing "fancy." Like Simpson, Huneven has faith in her story; it's the story itself that will keep you turning the pages.

Huneven is an underappreciated master of literary fiction. This career--whose highpoints are "Blame" and "Off Course"--deserves quite a bit more recognition. "Bug Hollow" may not be her very best novel, but it's a keeper.