The first novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk about Kevin is a compelling and provocative story of love and how we suffer for it. Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible-and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great triumph in Kenya, she is accompanied by her faithful middle-aged assistant, Errol McEchern, who has loved her for years in silence. When young graduate assistant Raphael Sarasola arrives on the scene, Gray is captivated and falls hopelessly in love-before an amazed Errol's eyes. As he follows their affair with jealous fascination, Errol watches helplessly from the side-lines as a proud and fierce woman is reduced to miserable dependence through miserable dependence.
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['Errol, I'm tired of being a character'. Gray leaned back in her chair. 'When I meet people they expect, you know, Gray Kaiser']***
(@HarperCollinsUK, 2 March 2017, first published 1 April 1987, 13 hours 48 minutes, audiobook, borrowed from @GlasgowLib via @OverDriveLibs, read by Paul Birchard)
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I like Shriver's work. I don't have a great opinion of her as a person as she comes across as harsh and bitter at times but she can write as she's proven again and again. This is her debut and I think her later works are slightly better but this is still an impressive read. So much of this book rings true. Gray is an accomplished woman, top in her field and yet she becomes just as lost and just as pathetic under the glare of obsessive love as anyone else. I related to her. I've loved someone as much as she loves Raphael and could see a younger version of myself in her behaviour. I felt great sympathy for Errol, who loves her in silence. Why doesn't he just tell her, at least he'll know? This poses the age-old question will they or won't they? At times Errol's feelings break the surface and there are hints Gray make feel the same way but so much is unsaid. Raphael is a horrible person but Gray can't see this as she's besotted. I completely got this.
