Love, loneliness and drama in a small town
Tulip Chowdhury holds her breath and reads
3 September 2010, 18:00 PM
At the Corner of Love and Heartache
Curtiss Ann Matlock
Mira Books
THIS book is a real page-turner. You flip open to the first page and at once you fall in love with the protagonists Marilee Roe James and Tate Briggs Holloway. Both are kind, polite and hardworking folks. In fact, the reasons to like them could go a long way. They have just announced their engagement in the local newspaper, The Valentine Voice. Tate is the editor of the newspaper and Marilee the associate editor. The coming wedding is the big bang for the neighbours who have known them for years. Both Tate and Marilee are taking second chances with married life and are looking forward to being happy. They are in anticipation of the "one in a thousand" chance that life is giving them. They are two love-hearts caught in the quiet life of a small town in Oklahoma, USA.
Marilee has a five year old son, Willie Lee. He is a frail little boy who needs special care; and she is also the legal guardian of her sister's ten-year old daughter Corrine. Single and having a full time job, taking care of these two children certainly is not easy for Marilee. In her thirties, Marilee often thinks that when her ex-husband Stuart James left her she was caught in a life drowning her in turmoil. But then she did pick up the threads and take a firm hold over life. This Marilee and the docile wife Stuart left eight years back are not the same person. She is more confident and has learned to take care of life in the outside world. At times it seems as if all she did in her first marriage was to take care of Stuart's clothes because he liked crisp, starched shirts. She has been the perfect wife. But what did she get at the end? The ambitious Stuart grew tired of her and had moved on. He left Marilee to struggle with the two children. But life never stands still and the cruel blow made Marilee focus more on her strengths rather than on her weaknesses. She is now a full time journalist and somebody in town.
Tate has been in love with Marilee for a long time. When Marilee gives in and agrees to marry him, Tate does not know how to contain his joy. He has the announcement on the front page of his newspaper. He goes about buying bouquets for her almost every day. Tate is a good man and is very affectionate towards Willie Lee and Corrine. However, Tate has his trials and tribulations. His newspaper keeps him on his toes. He cannot find enough time for Marilee. On the other hand, Marilee thinks it may be a part of him that is overlooking their need to be together more often. He then has to make his decision to adopt Willie Lee. It is needed for the little boy's security in case something should happen to Marilee. And then when his fifteen-year old employee Charlotte decides to leave the paper, Tate has to reach out to Marilee to help him out. Marilee realizes that Tate is no saint and she will have to take his roses along with the thorns.
As the reader becomes engrossed with the lives of Marilee and Tate, life all around the small town of Valentine seems to unfold in the story. The reader seems to get involved with the other characters. There is Charlotte, who has an ailing mother to take care of. There is Sandy, who is eleven years younger than Charlotte but is in love with her and wants to marry her. There is Franny, Tate's fifty-year old mother who still looks as if she is in her thirties and has Davies, the eighty-year old man, dating her. Of Davies, Franny says, " Well, he is not eighty in his heart!"
Then there is Stella Purvis, who leaves her husband Leon Purvis after a fight. Leon calls her and begs her to come back, saying he does not want to spend the rest of his life regretting their marriage. After six hours Stella is back, saying she is tired of the open road anyway.
Anita, Corrine's mother, is a woman with an eccentric nature. She is always in a down the gutter mood and makes empty promises to her daughter. Corrine's father has left her mother, ending an unhappy marriage. Corrine clings to Marilee and would rather not meet her mother. But at times she feels very sad and wishes that she had a normal mother, a father and a home. But she is very possessive about Willie Lee and thinks it is her responsibility to look after him while she lives with Aunt Marilee.
These are people standing at the crossroads. But their life and values are reflected in their southern life. Among them Marilee stands perplexed and is waiting for the push in the right direction. She has very supportive relatives and friends who are there for her. And that push ironically comes from Stuart, Marilee's ex husband and her son's father. Just when she is about to be married to Tate, Stuart appears and he wants Marilee to be there for him at the most critical time of his life. He discloses that he regrets all his earlier decisions to leave his family, that he is extremely lonely. At this inopportune time he asks Marilee to think long and hard about the road she is taking. But Stuart, with his charm and talent and his own secrets, is exactly what Marilee's heart needs to move into the arms of the right man and into the happiness that is waiting right at the corner. While she debates her dilemma Marilee reasons with her own heart: "Well, I am neither a saint nor a sinner!"
On the other hand, Willie Lee gets a name for curing sick animals just by holding them or touching them. Tate wants to make this news for the people of Valentine. But Marilee knows that this disclosure will only cause havoc to her special-needs son. In the meantime, a tornado tears down Tate's home and leaves him in financial ruin. Here, the wonderful unity of people in dealing with the aftermath of the tornado is a revelation for these small town inhabitants. The drama of life in Valentine is certain to make the reader feel as if he is very much a part of it and give him a push to go on reading the book until it ends with a "catch- your- breath" climax.
Matlock is an interesting "slice of life" author and gives us a good sense of atmosphere and character. She is capable of setting up a good story, a story that holds good on the reader's imagination. Her characters and plot do not seem artificial. The unfolding events come with logic and the narratives and the reader get the feeling that the writer has "lived" in it all. While the book lasts the reader is bound to feel that life was indeed eventful while the reading lasted!
Tulip Chowdhury writes fiction and is a critic.
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