Strange Fits of Passion: A Novel

Fans of Shreve's other novels, including The Pilot's Wife and The Weight of Water, will appreciate this earlier effort, which, like the others, combines mystery and marriage to create a suspenseful, intriguing story about trouble. Like Anna Quindlen's novel, Black and Blue, Strange Fits of Passion revolves around a young mother who has taken her child and fled an abusive husband to settle in a new community and begin life again under an assumed name. The similarities end there, however, as Shreve builds a more complex, thickly layered story that involves numerous points of view and dips in and out of the past without ever becoming confusing or dense. The novel begins with a magazine writer, Helen Scofield, traveling to a college dormitory to visit Caroline English, the daughter of writer Maureen English, a woman who, we soon learn, was imprisoned for murdering her allegedley abusive husband, Harrold, also a writer, many years earlier. Helen's visit is, ostensibly, to deliver to Caroline the letters and transcripts that she collected as she investigated the murder for an article she was writing. We read of the relationship between Maureen English and her husband from her own point of view--reports of the abuse she suffered, the life she led in the small Maine fishing village to which she fled, and, later, the details of the event that took her husband's life. Interspersed with her memories are the reports from various members of the fishing community she lived in--people who variously report on Maureen and her life there, and who hold her responsible for the crime to varying degrees. Finally, we read the article Helen wrote about Maureen English, her marriage, and her decision to kill her husband, and learn an entirely other lesson about what the truth is and what it means to tell the truth. This is a fascinating, engrossing story.

Like many of Anita Shreve's novels, the structure of this book seems to have started as a writing assignment Shreve might have assigned as a college professor. The story begins with with Helen Scofield, an experienced journalist who began her career at a prominent weekly news magazine, visiting a young college co-ed. Helen has come to turn over her research and notes from a famous story she wrote decades earlier about the girl's mother. While we don't know the details, it is clear that the magazine piece had a profound effect of the family's life and that Helen has second thoughts about the story she wrote. The research consists of transcripts and notes from Helen's interviews with Mary Amesbury aka Maureen English, a former colleague at the magazine, and those who knew her during her brief stay in St. Hilaire on the Maine coast. It quickly becomes apparent that the subject of the piece is domestic abuse, as seen through the lens of the prejudices and ignorance of the early 1970s. Shreve lays out the facts in the "research" and allows us to hear the original voice of the relevant characters and come to our own conclusions about what happened and why. At the end of the book we get to read Helen's original article and consider the accuracy and sensationalism of Helen's take on the story.

The structure of the book certainly makes it a fascinating read, but equally noteworthy are Shreve's lyrical prose and vivid descriptions of the Maine shore. One constant in all of Shreve's books is her obvious love for and familiarity with the rugged New England coast and the people who live there. All in all, this is a wonderful book, challenging, intriquing, thought-provoking. You'll be glad you read it.

Anita Shreve does it again with Strange Fits of Passion, a story in which the main character is a victim of violent physical abuse. Maureen English meets Harrold at her place of employment as a reporter in New York City. They immediately begin a relationship and marry within a year or so. Their relationship is characterized by heavy drinking and erotic sexual experimentations which all seem harmless for a time. Until the beatings begin. And they only get worse as time passes. Maureen becomes pregnant and has baby Caroline and, still, the violence continues, spurred on by inane jealousy, over-drinking or losses of temper. Once Maureen runs away only to return scared and ashamed. The second time she leaves, however, after a particularly bad scuffle, is for good. This time she drives with their baby to Northern New Enland where she knows noone and risks discovery less quickly. Yet she lives in the fear that he will eventually find her and, this time, she knows he will kill her. Told from the point of view of a reporter who later writes a book based on Maureen's story, the reader views letters Maureen has written that act as interviews, and later on, the newspaper article written on the basis of these interviews. Scary suspenseful, and emotionally demanding, Shreve has once again won my utmost respect and admiration as a modern novelist.

I was totally captivated by this book. I thought about it at night after I put it down, and I thought about it again in the morning. I have read other books by Anita Shreve, and they were excellent as well. But this story makes you want to scream at Mary. You see her mistakes, you see her helplessness, and you can't do anything. It brought to mind Black and Blue by Anna Quindlan. The same idea of wife beating, and not understanding how it gets this bad. I didn't want this story to end. I will certainly read all other books by Anita Shreve.

I thought this earlier of Shreve's novels eclipsed THE PILOT'S WIFE. I-who barely can make time to read-couldn't put it down. I was magically transported to the cabin in Maine, and I was almost afraid to turn the pages and be confronted with the horrors that Maureen/Mary had and was about to experience. But once again-much like in THE PILOT'S WIFE-I felt the ending was too abrupt, that Shreve tried to tie things up too quickly and neatly. Too go into such in-depth descriptions of people's psyches and their surroundings and then to sum it all up with no loose ends was quite disappointing.