Matrimony by Joshua Henkin

Published: 2007 / 291 pp.

First line: “Out! Out! Out! The first words Julian Wainwright ever spoke, according to his father, Richard Wainwright III, graduate of Yale and grand lubricator of the economic machinery, and Julian’s mother, Constance Wainwright, Wellesley graduate and descendent or a long family of Pennsylvania Republicans.”

Synopsis: (from book jacket) From the moment he was born, Julian Wainwright has lived a life of Waspy privilege. The son of a Yale-educated investment banker, he grew up in a huge apartment on Sutton Place, high above the East River, and attended a tony Manhattan private school. But more than anything, Julian wants to get out — out from under his parents’ influence, off to Graymont College in western Massachusetts, where he hopes to become a writer.


Review:  I thoroughly enjoyed Matrimony.  I had noticed that my fellow bloggers were reviewing it and reading it in their book clubs, and was curious enough that I decided NOT to read any of reviews — I did not want other opinions or impressions to influence my experience.  Well, fortunately, the author contacted me for a review last week and I happily agreed.  It arrived Monday afternoon and I was able to read it in two sittings.

My initial reactions were a little reserved — on the first page, Julian jumps from a fifteen month toddler to an eighteen year old embarking for college, and the shift seemed sudden.  Then I realized Julian was only one year older than me, and I feared this would be another novel by a peer that left me dissatisfied and irritated. 

As I have stated in earlier reviews (Man Gone Down, Then We Came to the End, and even A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) highly-touted works by my peers have seemed a little self-absorbed and self-conscious.  Although I understand allusions to the eighties and nineties, I tend to wonder, “So What!  What’s the greater significance?”  So I worried a little bit when Henkin went into detail about Michigan basketball’s Fab Five.  I grew up in Michigan and my sister went to graduate school at the U of M during this time, and wasn’t sure this passage was needed (especially considering they never quite seemed to achieve their promise after college…).  On the other hand, I do love sports, and I understand the mystique of Big 10 athletics.  

Fortunately, my short-lived fears were firmly put to rest when I read this passage on p. 192:

There had emerged in American fiction a strain of excess, he believed, a group of knowing authors whose every sentence seemed to shout, “Look how smart I am.”  He had nothing against muscular prose; it was the flexing of those muscles that he objected to, and, along with it, a disregard for character, which for him, was what fiction was about.

At this point, I knew I was reading a kindred spirit, at least so far as writing is concerned. 

Another early fear concerned Julian’s freshman writing class.  I think a reader could easily feel a part of that class, listen to the professor’s rules and then begin judging Henkin’s novel in the same vein.  In fact, in the first section I felt as if Henkin didn’t “show” enough (according to Professor Chesterfield’s inverted “Tell, don’t Show” rule), at times the flashing forward of time needed a bit more “salt and pepper dialogue,” and two of my favorite characters were Mary the Newfoundland and Cooper the Golden Retriever (breaking the professor’s “No non-human characters” rule).  Fortunately Henkin himself didn’t choose to follow the professor’s rules at times and his novel was stronger for this.

One last unfounded fear regarded one of Julian’s students: the ol’ teacher sleeping with the student cliche –onerous for many reasons (including power differentials, male adoration fantasies, and the “naughty” breaking of taboo) which I may be able to analyze cognitively, but as a former teacher I just don’t get or excuse.

At times I fell into the trap of associating Julian with the author, but Henkin is able to “write what you know about what you don’t know or what you don’t know about what you know” well enough that ultimately it just doesn’t matter how much is or is not autobiographical.  I think this association is inevitable to a point since Julian is a writer, but is also a testament to the veracity of Henkin’s characterization.

Happily, all of my fears were ultimately unfounded.  It did take me two sections to fully get to know Julian, but his characterization is worth the wait and ultimately fulfilling and authentic.  The other characters, from his love interest to his college roommate, are much easier to get to know, but Julian is on a subtle journey of self-awareness more than the other characters so this deliberate process works well (his roommate is on a journey, too, but in a more obvious and less interesting way).  My occasional irritations with Julian were resolved satisfactorily by the end, and I recommend that you “trust” Henkin as you read his novel.

A few of my favorite aspects of Matrimony involve how well Henkin expresses the quiet intimacies of marriage — the “hanging out” quality of true companionship that is so crucial and such a gift to a good marriage.  He also captures a lovely quality of college life:

It made him nostalgic for a time when everyone was just dropping by, the cheeseburgers and onion rings eaten on dorm room floors, the hastily organized surprise parties, the years when time unfurled illusorily before them, when there was nothing to do but celebrate one another(116). 

I love the second half of that sentence…

So, I enthusiastically recommend this novel!  Check out this interview with Henkin on Everyday I Write the Book.  And remember, if you have written a review, feel free to link below! 

By the way, congratulations to Monica for winning last week’s Remember Me?  I asked Joshua Henkin if might be willing to donate another free copy to one of my loyal readers…  If he agrees, I’ll let you know! 

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

You may like these posts, too!

• BTT: The Veracity of Reviewing
• Review and Free Giveaway: Forever Lily
• Sunday Salon: The Revenge of the Rinellis
• Sunday Salon: Absalom, Absalom!
• The Sunday Salon: The Book Thief
• Review: The Other Side of the Horizon and The Million Dollar Therapist
• Fall Reading List, part one…
• Sunday Salon: there is no me without you
• Review: Man of the House
• Sunday Salon: In Defense of Food