Oh William!

 by Elizabeth Strout

This is one of the books nominated for the Booker Longlist this year.

This book is about a woman, whose second husband died recently, who is having to cope with some issues with her first husband, whom she left years ago.

The woman had periodically met with her first husband over the years, for coffee etc.  It seems that her first husband was very remote and uncommunicative.  The book describes her relationship with her husband and mother-in-law.  It also describes the much better relationship that she had with her second husband.

Her ex-husband's second wife has now left him.  He is not handling that well.  In addition, the man has found out that his mother had a child before him whom she gave up for adoption.  He wants his ex-wife to accompany him on a trip to meet this step sister.  She reluctantly agrees.

The author does a great job of describing the frailties in people and the complexities in their relationships.  The protagonist still loves her ex in some ways but also knows that he drove her and continues to drive her crazy.

They fly to near where the ex was raised and tour a number of locations where he lived, eventually finding the very humble house where is mother was raised (they had not realized she was so poor as a child).  She was wealthy as an adult.

There is also some tension because the ex's mother left her husband to marry a German POW in America.  So there is some tension between the fact that the man's father was a German soldier and the woman's father a solider for the allies.

They eventually stop at the ex's step sister's house.  The woman goes in to talk to her.  Why didn't she make her husband go in and meet the step sister?  It was not her role??

Anyway she finds out the woman has had a good life but does not want to meet her step brother.  Maybe if he had come to meet her she might have changed her mind.

A fascinating character study, except for the woman continually enabling her disfunctional ex husband. Oh William!! about sums up the book.

I can certainly understand why this author has won the Pulitizer prize and other awards for her other books.