The Amateur Marriage

Hmmm… I really don’t have much to say about this book. I read it out of desperation. I came back from my big annual trip to DC and had nothing to read and a massive cold that kept me in bed for 5 days. This book was laying around so I read it. It was good I guess. Well written, but not terribly enjoyable.

It’s about a young couple that meet at the start of World War II and fall in love and get married upon his return from service. Their marriage kind of sucks from early on (hence the title), but not in an entertaining, bickery way, more in a depressing, we need a divorce kind of way. Not exactly a bucket of laughs. The book follows their marriage over the years, eventually ending in the present day. I did get pretty engaged midway through when their 17 year old daughter runs away during the 1970s, but when it became clear that she probably wasn’t ever coming back, I got bored with that plot line. I’m adding this to the pile of books that I think would probably be more enjoyable to an older generation, kind of how I feel about most of Anne Tyler’s books really.