Genres
Description
A bittersweet and hilarious novel about a marriage whose decades-old routine is suddenly upended. Walter Schmidt has lived his whole life within the narrow, "comfortable" confines of traditional gender roles: he has made it to retirement without learning how to fry an egg or use a vacuum cleaner. After all, he could always count on his wife, Barbara. But when one morning she can't get up from bed anymore, everything changes. With biting humor and great warmth, Alina Bronsky writes about how Walter, nearing the end of his life, is suddenly forced to reinvent himself as a caregiver and house-husband, and become the caring partner he never was in all his years with Barbara. Little by little, Walter's rough facade begins to crumble-and with it his old certainties about his life and family.… (more)
Publication
User reviews
The book is comic, touching and sad, all at the same time. Walter is a curmudgeon--he's alienated the children, has few friends, and for much of their 50+ years of marriage has treated Barbara as pretty much a slave. But now, in her illness, he's trying really hard to do better (without ever admitting he did anything wrong in the first place). Bronsky is able to make us sympathize and root for this mostly unlikeable man. It's a very real portrait of a type of man of a certain age, not macho exactly, but one who has been catered to and waited on his whole life suddenly having to do the waiting on. And discovering how difficult it is to care--really care--for another person.
I loved this bittersweet book.
4 stars