Wandering and Wondering

SPOILERS:

I really liked this book…to be perfectly honest it’s hard to explain why. When asked what I thought – I default to; ‘it reminded me of a Woody Allen film…nothing happened but everything happened.’ I found myself with tears rolling down my face on the tube without realising how or why. Then I looked up and realised ‘yes I know why, it’s because there is beautify in simplicity’. The story takes place over the course of a day.

Jessica Antony beautifully pieces together a husband and wife’s relationship that has since their first interaction been growing sideways. Kathleen spends the entire day in the pool soaking in water but more importantly soaking in thoughts of previous lovers and lives lived – remembering memories of freedom and contemplating when she made her biggest mistakes and why. What triggers this? A nauseous morning and missed period. However she ushers the boys off with their father to church denying any issues. Antony’s ability to describe the miscommunication of the marriage whilst also sanely explaining how both characters are able to read each other’s minds is genius.

Virgil spends the day roaming around from church to home to golf to home; he is roaming over every detail of every mistake he has made – the affairs, the flaws, the regrets, the getaway plan. Both leads take part in morbidly similar actions simply with a different strategy – one in a pool, one in a car. Both characters come face to face with their biggest problems and in solitude attempt to decide their own fate.

Some thing I found particularly wonderful about Antony’s writing was the slow reveal of both Kathleen and Virgil’s background stories. Every inch of story was necessary; even if for a second I thought it had no relevance it suddenly revealed itself as character development or a hint towards betrayal or a subtle nod to childhood – not a details was missed.

Antony writes as we imagine a woman of the 50’s to be; strong, proud, brave and robust – a woman who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty whilst never lifting a finger or unravelling a curl. Now this isn’t explained or narrated to us, we simply visualise this from the words on the page. Kathleen: tennis player, a woman who gave up everything for a man, a woman who was once worth more than him financially and in status however a woman that also knew her place in society and wasn’t in a position to fight. Are you understanding now the heartbreak?

And Virgil, a man who tries to turn it around, who is good-looking and gentlemanly and tries to put his family first. A man who acknowledges his mistakes and flips the world on its head to make it right.

The Most is beautiful – it is an enthralling story about what it is to be desired verse needed. It is a story of missed opportunity in love and marrying the wrong one. It made me question what my future would hold and whether I would have regrets. As I read with tears on my face I thought to myself ‘I would fight… I would fight for love and I would fight for the one’.

Not to be missed (it is literally 135 pages)