The Future of Love by Shirley Abbott | Fiction | DONNE TEMPO
The Future of Love by Shirley Abbott
June/12/08 01:29 PM Filed in: Fiction
By Cecie O’Bryon England
Shirley Abbott, in her 2008 novel, The Future of Love, (Algonquin Books; March 2008. ISBN-10: 1565125673. $16.29 hardcover) combines modern dramatic fiction with an extended cast of characters living in Manhattan from 2001 to 2002.
The falling of the World Trade Center serves as a life changing catalyst for some and allows others to more clearly define their feelings for their significant others.
A
series of related characters explain the ongoing
situations from their own perspectives. The
greater event is that of September 11th. . The
more personal event is the commitment ceremony of
two women.
The male characters seem to be wishing for a way to escape their situations. The women seem to be wishing for more general changes. Antonia is waiting for a change of government.
Antonia is the central figure, a widow in her seventies who has found true love for the first time with her one time boss, the married publisher, Sam. How she accepts, appreciates, and suffers from this relationship is understood from her first person chapters and layered with the perceptions of those close to her.
Abbott cleverly allows the readers access into the minds of Sam (Antonia’s lover), Maggie (Antonia’s shocked and suffering daughter) Mark, (Maggie’s struggling husband), Edith (Sam’s wife), Candace (the black lesbian lover of Sam’s granddaughter and the niece of Greg Antonia’s neighbor), Greg himself (a dying dancer) and Art (his lover).
It is a complicated combination, the inner voices and overlapping stories. However, this is a small sample of people and to know their aspirations and thoughts and feelings from their own perspectives is a real look at the inner lives of others.
While Antonia is considering the possible life ahead of her, Mark, her son in law, is contemplating her life expectancy.
The difference in perspectives and the pathos of separation lead the reader to an intimate relationship with Antonia. The men we wish we liked better, the other women we wish were more sympathetic characters.
There are still moments of hope and beauty in the lives of all of Abbott’s characters but even in knowing them the reader truly relates only to Antonia.
Antonia alone seems to know what she believes in, and why, and be willing to fight for it. She is a ripened woman, one who survived her career on the editorial staff, survived her marriage to a respectable, if not inspired, man, and raised her child. She has held onto her self and her family.
Her investments have grown and she is now a woman of means, with choices and independence. We, the readers, want this independence to be full of love, and romance, and joy. Antonia knows it is a full life complete with death, illness, risk and sorrow. She is willing to take it.
Shirley Abbott, in her 2008 novel, The Future of Love, (Algonquin Books; March 2008. ISBN-10: 1565125673. $16.29 hardcover) combines modern dramatic fiction with an extended cast of characters living in Manhattan from 2001 to 2002.
The falling of the World Trade Center serves as a life changing catalyst for some and allows others to more clearly define their feelings for their significant others.
The male characters seem to be wishing for a way to escape their situations. The women seem to be wishing for more general changes. Antonia is waiting for a change of government.
Antonia is the central figure, a widow in her seventies who has found true love for the first time with her one time boss, the married publisher, Sam. How she accepts, appreciates, and suffers from this relationship is understood from her first person chapters and layered with the perceptions of those close to her.
Abbott cleverly allows the readers access into the minds of Sam (Antonia’s lover), Maggie (Antonia’s shocked and suffering daughter) Mark, (Maggie’s struggling husband), Edith (Sam’s wife), Candace (the black lesbian lover of Sam’s granddaughter and the niece of Greg Antonia’s neighbor), Greg himself (a dying dancer) and Art (his lover).
It is a complicated combination, the inner voices and overlapping stories. However, this is a small sample of people and to know their aspirations and thoughts and feelings from their own perspectives is a real look at the inner lives of others.
While Antonia is considering the possible life ahead of her, Mark, her son in law, is contemplating her life expectancy.
The difference in perspectives and the pathos of separation lead the reader to an intimate relationship with Antonia. The men we wish we liked better, the other women we wish were more sympathetic characters.
There are still moments of hope and beauty in the lives of all of Abbott’s characters but even in knowing them the reader truly relates only to Antonia.
Antonia alone seems to know what she believes in, and why, and be willing to fight for it. She is a ripened woman, one who survived her career on the editorial staff, survived her marriage to a respectable, if not inspired, man, and raised her child. She has held onto her self and her family.
Her investments have grown and she is now a woman of means, with choices and independence. We, the readers, want this independence to be full of love, and romance, and joy. Antonia knows it is a full life complete with death, illness, risk and sorrow. She is willing to take it.