Monday, October 18, 2010

My Occasional Torment-Bee Robb

My Occasional Torment
Bee Robb
Five Star, Dec 8 2010, $25.95
ISBN: 9781594149238

It Has been thirty three years of marriage to Sebastian Connery, yet Julia fears for her relationship. She knows her spouse, his lunatic father also named Sebastian and ashes of the extended Connery brood in the urns inside her bedroom closet remain irate with her for not naming the next generation the III.

Julia begins talking to herself. Her husband has been vanishing for periods without explanation. The ashes of her relatives agree that is like he did years ago when Sebastian was having an affair. Her imaginary self insists what do you expect after three decades of marital ennui and challenges her real self to find a faithful happy couple celebrating their silver anniversary. Julia begins her quest which leads to the retirement community of Sebastian the elder and dinner with the “Vampire” next door whose husband allegedly exploded. So far Julia has had no success on her quest to find a couple who remain in lust after five decades of marriage.

This is an intriguing look at marriage over the long run as everyone including her still disapproving of her (after three plus decades of marriage to his son) father-in-law, her Vampire neighbor next door, her teen son and most critical her other self insists intimacy inevitably becomes ennui. The support cast especially the imaginary Julia is flaky as they insist marital survival is not marital romance. Although Julia’s occasional torment seems at times childish and irritatingly churlish compared with the rest of cast specifically her alter ego, fans will enjoy her quest to find one marriage of fifty years or more in which the couple remain overtly intimately in love.

Harriet Klausner

No comments: