“When you marry someone, you marry their whole family.” The newlywed couple may have accepted this sentiment, but the rest of the family doesn’t get a vote. And yet sometimes these new relationships can doom the marriage. Who hasn’t heard of a stepson or mother-in-law whose selfish behavior led to a break-up?
In her latest novel, At Last, Marisa Silver writes of two widows who are bound together when their children marry. Evelyn and Helene find themselves locked in a decades-long battle over whom their granddaughter Frankie loves more. In long chapters with alternating narrators, Silver details important events over the decades that shape the women into their adult and senior selves.
Helene’s life is full of tragedy: An only child after losing a brother and a sister, she marries an older German doctor who hides a tragedy of his own. The only real love Helene receives in life is from her only child, Tom, so it’s not surprising that she views Evelyn as her competition.
Evelyn’s daughter Ruth is one of three daughters, but she’s the one who seems to need her mother the most. Disdainful of Helene’s lavish Shabbat dinners and her formal manner, Evelyn vacillates between judging the other woman and pitying her. As the years go on and Tom and Ruth’s relationship changes, both women soften.
At Last reads like a combination of Elizabeth Strout and Jennifer Egan. With no real plot, the chapters hopscotch from year and year, describing events in the women’s lives: the wedding, Frankie’s broken arm. Told mostly from Helene and Evelyn’s third-person points-of-view, the book starts with Tom and Ruth’s 1971 wedding, then goes back to the women’s childhoods, then continues moving forward. With all the women in the book grappling with love and career issues, At Last often feels like a portrait of feminism over the past eighty years.
For a novel without a traditional three-act structure, the writing is incredibly compelling. These women come across so strongly on the page, and the reader roots for them to find love, happiness, and acceptance—both of self and of others. And for someone to step in and help Frankie, whose grown-ups seem too self-absorbed to realize their girl is in trouble.
However, I do think the novel’s construct of checking in every several years lessens the development of the relationship between Helene and Evelyn. While the two share some meaningful events, they never really move beyond being their granddaughter’s other grandmother in an impactful way. In Helene’s case, the most meaningful relationship in her life seems to be the one she shares with her housekeeper, and I would have enjoyed reading more about that.
Still, with its in-depth characterization, At Last is a poignant reminder of the childhood wounds and internal battles that create a person. It might be a worthwhile lesson for folks dealing with angry stepsons or judgmental mothers-in-law.
Thanks to Broadside PR for the book in exchange for an honest review.
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