Jeffrey Eugenides won the Pulitzer for Middlesex, and 9 years later, he’s back with The Marriage Plot, a character-driven novel with fully fleshed out, if not always likeable, characters.
Madeleine Hannah is a pretty English major, about to graduate from Brown, who wrote her senior thesis on the marriage plot that was central in novels by Jane Austen and other Elizabethan authors. Mitchell and Leonard are both in love with Maddie and they couldn’t be more different from each other.
Mitchell has pined for Maddie throughout college, stuck in the “friend” role. After graduation he travels through Europe and works for Mother Theresa in India, all while trying to get over Maddie and finding out some truths about himself along the way.
Leonard is a manic depressive who is brilliant, and Maddie finds herself handling him and his illness while trying to find her own way in life as a literature scholar.
While The Marriage Plot takes place in the early 80s, save the lack of cell phones and other technology, the story is still relevant in today’s time. Mental illness, religion, the recession, and of course, marriage are all themes that continue to resonate.
While I enjoyed the parts of the book that concentrated on Maddie’s relationships with either Leonard or Mitchell, there were passages I could have done without. Lengthy descriptions of semiotics and other topics along with conversations that have little do with the plot were interesting but unnecessary.
Fans of Eugenides’s past novels will recognize his prose and dialog-heavy style, and will also enjoy The Marriage Plot.
Nancy is happy to have a relatively boring life. She writes about her 2 boys, books and life in Colorado at Life With My Boys and Books.