“Heart of the Matter” by Emily Giffin, $26.99
Only 28 pages into Emily Giffin’s “Heart of the Matter” and the foreshadowing makes it clear: Tessa’s marriage to a handsome pediatric surgeon is going to wind up in big fat trouble.
But Giffin manages rather skillfully to avoid the predictable chick-lit setup. Yes, there are two women and one man. There’s Tessa, who has given up her career as an English professor to raise her young daughter and son while Nick goes off to his demanding hospital career. And there’s Valerie, the lawyer and single mother of a much-loved boy named Charlie who winds up as one of Nick’s patients.
While there are only as many shades of gray as the reader wants to see — both Nick and Valerie know he’s married as they begin their flirtation — Giffin moves their exchanges along at a believable pace.
First, it’s just a concerned mother and doctor, then it’s a friendly mother and friendly doctor. Hallway chats turn to shared meals turn to phone calls and text messages. Things are definitely escalating.
By virtue of Giffin’s use of alternating chapters from each woman’s point of view, readers get a good feel for the depth and motivations of each woman. Tessa is frustrated staying home while her husband drifts deeper into his career.
Valerie mourns her isolation but pushes away most attempts by people who try to reach out to her. Giffin skillfully lets the readers see Nick through each woman’s eyes. He is almost godlike in Valerie’s tunnel vision, while Tessa finds his faults and tries to absolve him of them, too often by taking the blame on her own shoulders.
It takes Giffin, the author of “Something Borrowed,” “Something Blue” and “Baby Proof,” much of the novel’s 368 pages to put Nick at a pivotal point. Even as you steel yourself for it, it’s hard to read when it happens, which is what sets this book a step above so many other “will the spouse cheat” stories.
She creates characters in Tessa, Valerie and Nick who are believable and mostly well-intentioned even as they make obviously bad choices.
So many novels feature female protagonists who are caricatures: polished, poised, aerobicized and airbrushed. When Tessa talks of not remembering the last time she worked out, or feeling like a failure for not doing crafts with her preschool children, I gave a silent cheer (remembering those days oh so well).
When Valerie is rude and snappish to other mothers seeking absolution for the accident that landed her son in the hospital, I applaud. These are real reactions from women far more realistic than so many cookie-cutter heroines in novels geared toward a female audience.
The moral failings of these characters are explicit, and yet they still strike you as people you would like. That’s why Giffin succeeds in a book that could otherwise leave a reader cold.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
