Kingston, Ontario based Diane Schoemperlen's At A Loss for Words is a slim book, but packed with emotion. The protagonist is a fortysomething writer who can't sleep and can't write. To complicate the situation she's recently hooked back up with her teenage love and the novel takes us through their romance--from the first heady days of the reunion to the isolation she feels as she struggles to feel close to him despite their physical distance and beyond.
Without giving too much away someone should have given this woman He's Just Not That Into You. Seriously. I'm mean, we've all been there. You want someone so badly you're willing to romanticize and put up with a hell of a lot in a bid to convince him--and yourself--that its meant to be. Most of us also have a first puppy love not easily forgotten and what a great story it would be to find each other decades later and finally make it work...except that life is not always that pat, love not always that fated.
"At my age I should have known better than to get involved with you.
At my age I did know better than to get involved with you. But I did it anyway."
I enjoyed the unique writing style of the novel and it was poigant, but in some ways disappointing or perhaps just unsatisfying, if not altogether unbelievable. The ending, I'm sure, was meant as a shocker, but perhaps the surprise was just for the lady herself. This seems to be true in life as well as fiction, where people on the outside seem to be able to see bad relationships so much more clearly than the ones suffering through them.
3.5/5
Alla Prossima
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