Novels about Relationships
Updated September 2007

Haigh, Jennifer. Mrs. Kimble. © 2003.  (Fiction)
Three women fall in love with and marry the same man over a period of nearly 40 years, each of them attracted to his charisma, and each motivated by her own needs as well.

Their stories, which intertwine in this triptych, offer a bewildering and hazy picture of the enigmatic charmer who wreaks havoc on each of their lives.

Birdie meets Ken Kimble when he is her choir director—and supposedly, a pastor-- at a private, all-women’s college, and despite her parents’ objections, marries him and has two children, Charlie and Jody.  Her story begins just after Ken Kimble has left her for a much younger woman, and we watch as she numbs herself with alcohol and waits desperately for Kimble to return.

Joan is recovering from a bout with breast cancer and mastectomy that she has kept secret from even her family.  An independent journalist, she is in her late thirties and has never married. When she travels to Florida to settle her father’s estate, she meets Kimble, who has divorced Birdie and abandoned his young children and is working as a real estate agent. Desperate for someone to love her and see her as attractive, she falls for him.

Finally, Dinah is Ken’s third and youngest wife, a former baby-sitter for his two (now all but forgotten) children.  The two cross paths when he literally hits her with his car and helps nurse her back to health; he also pays for expensive surgery to minimize the massive port-wine birthmark that covers nearly half of Dinah’s face and has caused her lifelong shame. Her story begins 15 years into her marriage to Kimble, after they have had a son together and he has become wealthy and well-known for restoring homes and selling them at reasonable prices to low-income people. 

Each woman’s storing is equally engaging and intriguing, because each one is attracted to and needs Ken Kimble for a different reason.  Ultimately, each woman is affected much differently by this mysterious man. The minutiae of each woman’s life is absorbing and the details suck the reader in to each little world.  But Kimble himself is the truly intriguing character in the story, for we only know him through the eyes of each woman he marries and deceives. Some critics have complained about this, but I believe that it is this element that makes Mrs. Kimble such a fascinating story—that we don’t really know what motivates him, where he comes from, why he takes on different occupations and wives and abandons each after a few years.  The mystery of the story is who this man is and why he has such an affect on the people who become entangled in his life, and that is what leaves you thinking long after the book is over.

Henson, Heather. Making the Run. © 2002. (Fiction/YA).

High school senior Lu is desperate to leave her small Kentucky hometown and escape the memory of her mother and the distant relationship she has with her father. Totally unconnected with school, she spends most of her time doing drugs, taking pictures, and hanging out with her best friend, Ginny.  The two girls frequent bars to hear Lu’s older brother, Danny, play in his band.  And that’s where Lu becomes reacquainted with Danny’s friend, Jay.

Anyone who has read and liked some of the harder-hitting stories about teens struggling to establish identity, connect with parents, and make their own way in the world will enjoy Making the Run. Fans of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky and Brave New Girl by Louisa Luna will appreciate narrator Lu’s insightful, honest edginess and relate to her wish to escape small-town life.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

Writing historical fiction must be one of the most challenging endeavors novelists face. Besides picking characters that will appeal to readers, unless she’s writing strictly plot-oriented bodice-buster romances about shirtless pirates, the historical novelists must be meticulous about period detail and the basic facts of her characters’ lives if she hopes to create convincing stories.

Nancy Horan succeeds remarkably in her first novel, Loving Frank, which imagines the circumstances of architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s long-term affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney from their initial meeting to their lives tragic end of their relationship, primarily from Cheney’s point of view. The mother of two but intellectually dissatisfied in her marriage and home life, Cheney’s attraction for Wright develops as the two share thoughts and ideas about the renovations Wright is completing on the  home falls in love with Mamah, and the two pursue a passionate, intellectual affair.

To escape scandal at home, Mamah joins Frank Lloyd Wright in Europe, where he is completing several projects, and she becomes involved with the feminist Ellen Key, translating her radical ideas about women’s freedom and “free love.” But even another continent and intellectual fulfillment can’t protect Mamah from her sense of loneliness, nor can it stop the rumors and reports of the scandal from reaching her. Eventually, the pair returns home, where Wright begins building their dream home, Taliesin.

Period details, exquisite descriptions of Wright’s architecture and ideals, and Mamah Borthwick Cheney’s perspective make this fictionalization of their relationship a superior, gripping work of historical fiction and a superb example for writers aspiring to novelize the past.

Nissen, Thisbe. The Good People of New York.
A terrific novel about a New York Jewish woman who marries, for a few years, a down-home country boy from Nebraska. Although a portion of the novel is devoted to their marriage, the majority of the story follows divorced wife Roz and her daughter Miranda as they navigate the murky waters of single-parenting and coming-of-age, both drifting in and out of relationships with men, but sustained by their faith in and love for one another.

Roz mis-marries, originally, Miranda’s father, a Christian from Nebraska, and while their love at first seems ideal, the impending pressure of careers and family drive them apart, and Roz and Miranda are left alone to raise each other in New York City.

When Roz falls in love with Miranda’s orthodontist and he moves in with her and Miranda, Miranda is at first skeptical. She learns to appreciate the new situation, however, when she and the orthodontist’s teenage son hit it off. Their own relationship is doomed, however, when they discover a secret that drives their parents apart.

Parkhurst, Carolyn.  The Dogs of Babel. © 2003.  (Fiction).

My read-in-a-weekend selection for January is THE DOGS OF BABEL by Carolyn Parkhurst, which is one of those books which, when described, sounds weird and marginally appealing. HOWEVER, it is one of my favorite reads of late and I highly recommend it. 

When his wife, Lexy, is killed falling from a tree, Professor Paul Iverson, a linguist, is shattered. Convinced that his dog--the only witness to the accident--can tell him what happened to Lexy, Paul begins trying to teach her to speak.  His colleagues are convinced he is crazy, but he is heartened by previous gains made by others interested in canine communication. He discovers, however, that a local group fascinated by canine speech is far more sinister than he realized, and he realizes that perhaps Lexy herself is the only one who can tell him what happened to her.

But The Dogs of Babel isn’t a borderline sci-fi novel about talking dogs; it’s a book about grief, and about the complex and sometimes strange ways people work through their losses.  As he tells us about the progress of his project with the dog, Paul reflects on his marriage to Lexy, from their initial meeting (at a garage sale), to the first date (a week at Disney World) until their last fight, shortly before her death (he wanted children, she didn’t).  As he shares their story, it’s easy to understand his loss. Lexy was a gifted, charismatic artist—she crafted unique handmade masks—and their relationship was close and fun.  But Paul also reveals—and admits to himself—some difficult truths about Lexy and about their marriage.

As he reflects on their time together, Iverson admits that Lexy had a troubled past, that she was prone to anger, and that they had experienced some rough spots.  And as he gradually thinks more honestly about their marriage, he realizes that the clues to Lexy’s death have been with him all along.

Part love story, part suspense story, The Dogs of Babel is a funny, touching, and truly unique novel about grief and healing.  Not to be missed.

Winston, Lolly. Good Grief. © 2004.  (Fiction).

When her husband dies of cancer, 30-something Sophie Stanton is devastated, disbelieving her situation despite months of having known Ethan was going to die. She attempts to continue her normal life at first, but her grief eventually catches up with her in small ways. When she shows up for work wearing fuzzy pink bunny slippers, she’s put on leave and uses the time to rebuild her life.

Invited by her old best friend, Ruth, to come visit in Ashland, Oregon, Sophie reluctantly accepts. But when she arrives in town and takes a restaurant job, she discovers a heretofore unknown talent for cooking and begins to recreate herself. She joins a grief support group and becomes a Big Sister to a challenging girl named Crystal.

Sophie’s challenges, besides loneliness and loss, include her new role as a business owner, surrogate mother, and, soon enough, single woman on the dating scene. The story of her survival and triumph over grief made for one of my favorite books this year. Despite its sad premise, it is, in Lolly Winston’s hands, a sensitive, often funny glimpse at recovery.