New York Review of Books Review
The old joke: four quarter horses constitute a whole horse. But two half wives don't make a whole mare. Instead, they yield a very unhappy, very frangible menage. Pelletier's novel offers two leading ladies inhabiting San Francisco in the final decade of the 19th century, both in love with the same man. May 22,1897, is this author's Bloomsday, with a chapter dedicated to each half-hour up to 3 p.m. Henry and Marilyn Plageman lost a child 14 years earlier when their baby "choked to death in its crib. And with both parents home." Guilt gnaws at Marilyn's core. Every year the aggrieved husband and wife throw themselves a pity party, tidying up around the tiny grave and planting exotic flowers they know won't survive in the cemetery dirt. For this couple, all roads lead to the boneyard. But another child lives and thrives. The 8-year-old's name is Blue, and she's the offspring of Henry and his mistress, Lucy Christensen, 17 years his junior. Lucy waits patiently for her beloved in a cottage he bought her, where he visits punctually once a week. At the center of both women's affections stands the flawed, inexplicable Henry, a lapsed Lutheran pastor who never seems worthy of either of them. Yes, he's "an overgrown stalk of a man, weighted with intelligence." Yes, he knows his way around a billet-doux. He's gruff but gentle, tenderly kissing the hands of his rambunctious, delightful daughter. But Henry is essentially a grumpy old geezer, egoistic, abhorrent, difficult to stomach. How do the two "half wives" fare? Marilyn carries herself like a martyr, working for an orphanage and dreading her husband's touch. Lucy has a bit more pop: Her youthful energy and even her job as a taxidermist's assistant make her enthralling to spend time with. The developing San Francisco of the 1890s becomes a rich background for these three as they play out their messy, somber, intertwined fates.
Library Journal Review
Every visitor to San Francisco's Cliff House and the ruins of the Sutro Baths, which burned down in 1966, wonders about what it was like to visit the famous turn-of-the-century spa. Set on May 22, 1897, this first novel takes us there, introducing four protagonists-Harry Plagemen; his wife, Marilyn; Lucy Christiansen, Harry's mistress (or half wife); and Blue, Harry and Lucy's eight-year-old daughter-who live in the Richmond District neighborhood near the city cemetery and the baths. Their lives collide on this day when Henry and Marilyn make their annual pilgrimage to the city cemetery to visit their son's grave; the two-year-old boy had choked to death. At the graveyard, the parties in this ten-year love triangle reach a breaking point. VERDICT While the four-person narrative style gives us various perspectives and allows insight into the characters' denial of their situation, it ultimately limits development of their personalities. Best for readers interested in San Francisco and Richmond district history.-Cheryl Bryan, Orleans, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Preface --Blue? Where'd you run off to? The wind carries Ma's voice. She's outside the pump station. -- I'm in here. My reply isn't loud enough. Overhead, gray sky glares through the broken skylight. I kick again, until I'm floating on my back. How deep does this cistern go? Deep enough. I'm half floating, half paddling, glad now for those wretched swimming lessons she made me take. -- Blue! The water in this well is moving. It gurgles and foams. It tugs at my shoes and skirt and sailor jacket. A man's voice reaches my ears: -- Hear something again. Swear I do. -- I'm here, I call again. Ma'll have to pay for that broken skylight. She'll have to stop her work, march me home, tell me to change out of my wet clothes and put on something presentable, and that will make her late. If I cause her to fall behind whatever she's trying to do today, whatever task she's trying to accomplish, she'll grow not angry but sad, which is the worser of the two. -- This is a day to remember, Blue, she said while serving my oatmeal this morning. She set the bowl down so hard, the oats slopped. -- It's a day for the record books. Your mother is finally going to be brave. Then she turned and wrung out the dishtowel, wrung it until it was drier than dry, until her hands reddened. Saturday, May 22, 1897 Henry Waking is not the most accurate way to describe your current state. You're leaving your bed. That's it. That's a fairer phrasing. Leaving this mattress, this flea trap, after eight hours. The last fellow to stay here left behind a maroon robe. You're now wearing it. You're not proud. You're cold. You're cold, and you feel old. The robe ties with a sash around the waist. You're still wearing last night's suit beneath it. The robe turns you into a velveteen sultan. You're double-dressed now. Stand; pace the cell; that's right -- get the blood flowing. That's the trick. The robe is too short, and your legs are too long. The police dragged you here last night. You're in the park lodge, otherwise known as the Golden Gate Park police station. They arrested you after the so-called mass meeting. If by mass meeting they mean fifty people, all right, fair enough. But Hubbs did not achieve a higher head count than that. Neighborhood consensus be damned. That's what they tried to claim -- consensus. Not one soul except the officers of the cemetery associations has lifted a voice against it. That was Hubbs's line, Hubbs the attorney, leader of the Richmond Property Owners Protective Association. He spoke last night to the assembly at Simon's Hall. Over three hundred thousand citizens of San Francisco are in favor of the removal of the graveyards. And again, in the same speech, stroking his handlebar mustache: You can't make money and be successful alongside of a graveyard. And again, in conclusion: What use could a dead man have for a view? So it's Henry Plageman against three hundred thousand, then. Henry Plageman presently being held in the police station. Your odds could be better. That's nothing new. The neighbors don't know what to do with you. The improvement associations have declined to let you serve on their boards. You're the thorn in their flesh, the pebble in their shoe, the cliché they overuse. He's against progress. He's against property ownership. -- I am a property owner, you reminded them. When you took the stand at the front of Simon's Hall, towering over the podium to say your two-minute piece, for a moment there, you felt on fire, suffused with that old sensation of arresting an audience. Then the members of the Point Lobos Improvement Club started whispering, and their wives started smirking. You lost your temper, banged your fist on the podium like an idiot, like a politician. -- Have some respect for the dead, you said. -- Of which I am not yet one. Now you're the sole occupant of this holding pen across from Golden Gate Park, this rat hole that shares a wall with the local sanatorium. A threadbare sheet covers your mattress. This police lodge serves the entire Richmond district, all of the Outside Lands. And it's May 22, a day that comes but once a year and, when it comes, lasts as long as a year. Your timing couldn't be worse. That's nothing new either. If your mind wanders toward the Cliff, toward the occupants of the black-and-white-tiled kitchen inside the cottage at Sutro Heights, pull on the reins and tell yourself: Stop. Your watch has to be somewhere. It's in your coat, the old Prince Albert slung over the chair next to your hat. Your head's pounding. The policeman blessed you with his billy club last night. Your watch: nine o'clock. Christ. You slept later in this pen than you do in your own bed. You need to be long gone before this day takes over. Be ready, in place, prepared. Your small family has followed the drill for fourteen years, has perfected it. May 22. Marilyn's day; your wife's day. It will swing you from the rafters; it will wrap its limbs around your neck. This day will force you to carry it. You'll do whatever it commands. The police arrested a second man last night. He must be locked away in a backroom. Thomas Kerr has to be close to seventy. Thomas Kerr, foreman of Odd Fellows' Cemetery, arrested, like you, for disturbing the peace. You don't care for the cemetery foremen, not as a rule. But they're your only allies left in this fight. They're salesmen; they sell peace after death. They trade in burial plots, coffins short and long. They drive hearses, hire gravediggers, maintain grounds, chase vagrants off private property. When you told them you couldn't let the proposal to close the cemeteries reach the board of supervisors, when you declared you needed to kill the proposition before anyone called a vote, the foremen agreed to help. The cemetery men want to protect the Big Four: Laurel Hill, Masonic, Odd Fellows', and Calvary Cemeteries. All these reside within spitting distance of one another, blocking the Inner Richmond, with Odd Fellows' touching the district boundary. Your attention falls farther west. The city cemetery, also known as the Clement Street or Golden Gate Cemetery, contains the finest land in San Francisco, in all of California, if by finest one means wild terrain overlooking the Golden Gate strait, a windy hinterland with views of Mount Diablo and Mount Tamalpais across the waters, desolate gravesites surrounded by dunes and topped by native scrubs, pansy flowers, poison oak, berries. The cemetery men regard you with interest and pity. They don't disagree with your cause. It's one for all and all for one at this point. But the city cemetery is the largest and poorest, the most dilapidated. It's a potter's field, a burial ground for the immigrant, the indigent, the homeless, the nameless, the outsider. It's filled with Chinese and Italians, Jews, forgotten mariners, wanderers of obscure Scandinavian and Germanic origin. It also holds the benevolent associations, members of the Knights of Pythias, charity cases from the St. Andrew's Benevolent Society. It's an underground metropolis. Here and there someone has tried to tend a grave, has left behind an offering or artifact: a bracelet, glass beads, a pair of eyeglasses. The Chinese leave clothing. You have to find a way out of this police station. Does Marilyn know you're here? She thinks you're still home, sleeping. Your wife never comes to your bedroom anymore. She respects your privacy too much. She'll be out the door early herself. Marilyn will survive today, survive May 22, by staying in motion, by moving ceaselessly. She will not slow down once. Not until, say, eight o'clock tonight, at which point she'll go to pieces. You'll be there when that happens. Your wife needs you. She doesn't want you, but she needs you. You understand this. Oh, do you. You can't help her; your presence does not console her. But to leave would cause harm, so you stay. You are not a physician, but you strive to live by the oath a physician is required to take. It's the one law, the one principle you still retain; in common parlance, first, do no harm. This is easier lived than explained. Excerpted from The Half Wives by Stacia Pelletier All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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