Novels

The Senator’s Wife

I picked up The Senator’s Wife because of Ruth’s review. She said, “All the characters are vividly drawn, and all are deeply flawed. Even though I knew something dreadful was ahead, I couldn’t stop reading.” How could I resist after that?

I wasn’t disappointed. For one thing, this is an accomplished novel, my first by this author. The narrative alternates successfully between two characters’ points of view. Which is the main character: the newly married, uncertain Meri, wife to aspiring academic Nathan? or the confident, elegant Delia, wife to two-term senator Tom Naughton? It’s impossible to tell, we come to know both of them so thoroughly, and to pull for — or judge — both of them so fully.

Delia’s long marriage to Senator Naughton represents the hard-earned wisdom of a cheated-on wife who has stayed married. At times I found myself feeling judgmental, thinking of her as an enabler, a person who should see things in a clear-cut, simple way: once the vow to be faithful is broken, that’s that. At other times, I admired her, admired her ability to love after being wronged. At still other points I saw her as manipulative, the grand old controller.

For instance, after years of living separated, circumstances bring husband and wife together again with Delia the stronger party. Miller raises a comparison to Jane Eyre’s final pairing with a blinded and weakened Mr. Rochester. Is it love on Delia’s part? Or triumph? These are the kinds of questions the story inspired in me as it unfolded.

Similarly, on the one hand it was easy to feel critical of Meri. At times, she seemed terribly self-centered and childish. She’s impulsive, and sometimes downright foolish. Then, without warning, I’d recognize some similarity between myself and her that took the wind out of my self-righteousness.

I think that part of my struggle was with the book’s underlying, consistent rejection of any notion that there are rules for living. Anywhere. Discovering meaning and purpose is a strictly personal adventure, as Nathan affirms explicitly more than once: “I don’t think there are any rules.” Anyone who approaches ambiguous situations with dogma seems to be characterized as shrill. But at the same time, the novel’s conclusion about “whatever feels right to you must be right” remains ambiguous. There is no clear winner, and the consequences of selfishness are shown unsparingly.

I couldn’t relate to either woman fully. Their values and worldview are too different from my own. But where I could relate the connection was real and interesting. I cared about the characters, and as Ruth warned, I felt uncomfortable more than once. All in all I found this tale to be a provocative study of the different seasons of marriage that left me with lots to think about.

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