海角大神

There鈥檚 nothing minimalist or lightweight about Claire Lombardo鈥檚聽novels. Like her engrossing 2019 debut, 鈥淭he Most Fun We Ever Had,鈥� her latest, 鈥淪ame As It Ever Was,鈥� is a capacious, tender family drama and ode to marriage set in the Chicago area from which she hails.聽

Once again, Lombardo zeroes in on the vicissitudes of a supportive and loving, but by no means perfect,聽multidecades union. Her focus this time is less on sibling relationships and more on how her characters are marked by their childhoods, and how the baggage they carry affects their relationships with their spouses and children.

Julia Marini Ames is the frequently shaky centerpost of the novel. She is a wife, mother of two, and soon-to-be grandmother who has spent her life trying to make up for a childhood 鈥渃haracterized primarily by distance and need.鈥� After her father disappeared when she was 7 years old, she was raised by her erratic single mother, who made her feel unloved. For reasons revealed late in the novel, her home life deteriorated significantly in her teens, leading her to pick a distant college, never to return. 聽

By her own reckoning, Julia often feels inadequate and not 鈥渁n especially happy person, generally.鈥� She regrets that her default mode is negativity, and rues her proclivity for ruining things and 鈥渉urting the people who cared for her.鈥�

But most of the time, Julia recognizes that one of the best things that ever happened to her was meeting her husband, Mark Ames. She was 30 when the tall, affable stranger came to her rescue on a Chicago street, proffering coins for her parking meter and inviting himself to crash her weekly solo Korean dinner.聽

Lombardo depicts this 鈥減erson who鈥檇 always moved easily through the world鈥� with descriptions that provide a sharp contrast to Julia: 鈥渢he nicest man in the world,鈥� a 鈥渉umble nerd,鈥� 鈥渁 carer,鈥� an 鈥渆mpath.鈥� Even so, Julia nearly destroys their marriage with several self-sabotaging moves 鈥� which I鈥檒l leave for readers to discover.

We meet Julia, who鈥檚 in her late 50s, grocery shopping for her husband鈥檚 60th birthday dinner. She鈥檚 shaken when she runs into an old friend, Helen Russo, now in her 80s, whom she鈥檇 hoped never to see again. Our interest is immediately piqued, wondering what happened between these two women more than 18 years earlier to cause such a rift.

Lombardo is a great fan of flashbacks; her preferred narrative ploy is to dangle hints of past upsets, which are gradually revealed by jumping back in time. While this builds suspense, it also leads to frequent repetitions. By the time the novel returns to Julia鈥檚 school years, we鈥檝e already got the basic gist (excepting one particularly dark revelation).聽

Repetition 鈥� along with excessive detail 鈥� also bloated Lombardo鈥檚 hefty first novel. 鈥淪ame As It Ever Was鈥� is another 500-pager that would be stronger if it were significantly shorter.

That said, Lombardo is a writer who lavishes attention on her characters.聽

She excels at capturing not just the intricacies of marital interactions that include stony stretches, but also how living with a disdainful, brooding, 鈥渕ean and gorgeous鈥� teenager gearing up for college can put an entire household on edge. 聽

Lombardo鈥檚 portrait of the acute loneliness of new motherhood and 鈥渢he deadly ennui of the day-in-day-out鈥� is particularly sharp.聽

It鈥檚 at this low point that 30-something Julia, killing time on an especially rough day by visiting the botanical gardens with her 3-year-old son, meets Helen, a docent.聽

The compassionate older woman, a retired lawyer and mother of five grown sons, takes teary Julia under her wing, and their friendship flourishes over the course of several months with the intensity of a love affair.聽

鈥淵ou know you鈥檙e allowed to be having a hard time, right?鈥� Helen asks Julia, who has expressed guilt for complaining about 鈥渢he easiest life in the world.鈥�

鈥淪ame As It Ever Was鈥� is a fine-grained portrait of a woman determined to learn how to be a mother, wife, daughter 鈥� and person. It builds to a moving climax, encompassing along the way unexpected weddings, funerals, reconciliations, and losses.聽

Like life itself.