Readers who are only interested in plot will not be impressed by the works of Julia Glass. The events that transpire in her novels are utterly unremarkable as banal as everyday life. But Glass chronicles the daily grind with grace and skill, deftly employing shifting points of view to explore the relationships among her characters and the characters' complex emotions. Slowly, elegantly, Glass fosters a connection between the reader and her fictional characters. This is what Glass does well the literary form she mastered in her National Book Award-winning debut "Three Junes" (2003) and utilized effectively in her subsequent two novels. This is what Glass should continue to do.
In her new novel "The Widower's Tale," (2010) however, Glass has amped up the plot and it doesn't quite work in her favor. Granted, the events of the novel are compelling, at times exciting. There are hints at the mysterious death of the titular widower's spouse, the circumstances of which are unveiled gradually over the course of the novel. One character battles cancer while another attempts to hide his homosexuality after it costs him a job. Most dramatic of all, Robert, a pre-med student at Harvard University, finds himself mixed up with a group of eco-terrorists avid environmentalists whose attempts to shame America's SUV-driving, electricity-wasting upper class grow increasingly ambitious (and illegal) as the book progresses.
Yet, as the novel reaches its climax near the end of its 402 pages, suspense is replaced with a sense of relief at the book's impending conclusion. The events are dramatic and would work just fine in a plot-driven novel, but Glass does not couple her heightened plot with other stylistic changes. She maintains her M.O. of using multiple narrators, muted and elegant prose, and a slow pace. Whereas the slowness of Glass' previous works enabled readers to form a close bond with her characters and fully understand and appreciate their struggles and emotions, the slow pace of Glass' new novel is merely annoying when used with a dramatic plot. The quiet, thoughtful details that imbued "Three Junes" with charm get in the way of the rapidly escalating events of "The Widower's Tale," resulting in a story that is disjointed and unengaging, despite its intensity, and characters who are distant and forgettable despite the many pages provided for us to get to know them.
Perhaps this is because the story is not told from the perspective of its most interesting characters. The third person narration shifts between four men who are loosely linked by the events of the story, but it is the novel's supporting characters I found most compelling. The narrators are by no means uniform they include a homosexual preschool teacher, an illegal alien from Guatemala, an aging widower and his young grandson but they are unanimously disappointing in terms of character development. Furthermore, they are not directly engaged in the primary action of the novel. Instead, supporting characters seem to drive the plot. And while I was reading the novel, it was these voiceless supporting characters whom I admired. I was intrigued by them and wanted to befriend them as I have the characters of Glass' previous works.
For example, Percy Darling, the widower whose narration begins the novel, is an endearing character at times and an immensely frustrating one at others. When he discovers that his girlfriend Sarah, a single mother suffering from breast cancer, has lied to him, he alienates her completely, deserting her as she undergoes chemotherapy treatments. Percy may have been justified in his anger, but I was much more interested in Sarah's side of the story than in Percy's wounded complaints. A bohemian glass artist and a caring mother to her adopted son, Sarah is kind, independent and immensely interesting. Yet, subject to Percy's ramblings, we barely get past Sarah's physical appearance and the fact of her disease. Certainly, we do not come to know her character on a personal level. She is frustratingly elusive, as are the other supporting characters in the novel.
Percy's middle-aged daughters esteemed physician Trudy and family black sheep Clover are also drawn in these frustrating broad strokes. Trudy is deified and Clover demonized, but neither sister is afforded the opportunity to speak for herself. Similarly, Robert's roommate Turo is a tantalizingly complex character an earnest, impassioned environmentalist with an allegedly interesting past. That past, unfortunately, is never fully revealed. Readers are drawn in by Turo's charisma, his charm, his eco-terrorist exploits, and are expected to be content with just that. Never mind that Turo's narration would no doubt be vastly more compelling than Robert's mind-numbing narrative chatter, which is littered with phrases like "WTF" and "dude." (Clearly, it's been a while since Glass was a teenager her attempts to replicate teen lingo are painful to endure.)
Thus, "The Widower's Tale" falls victim to an unfortunate combination of skill and error. Glass' talents at constructing elegant prose and introducing compelling characters limit her ability to draw the reader into the story's plot and allow readers to empathize with the chosen narrators, resulting in a book that is both impressive and disappointing. The book is indeed compelling, but as I reached its final pages I couldn't fight the feeling that it could have been so much more.
