cover image The Genius of Affection

The Genius of Affection

Marilyn Sides. Harmony, $23 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-517-70444-8

Single and childless at 40, professor Lucy Woolhandler feels due for a ""karmic change of destiny"" in Sides's (The Island of the Mapmaker's Wife) eloquent and insightful novel about the possibility and process of transformation, and the sometimes slow, sometimes sudden nature of change. Lucy's true love, Michael Orme, lives in self-exile in Japan on a cultural exchange program; his wife refuses a divorce, and Michael believes that ""leaving without her agreeing is too violent."" But Lucy cannot wait. She is determined that her relationship with David Shure, her colleague at a Boston-area university, should yield an ""ordinary settled-down life, a life plain yet rich with treasure,"" even though 58-year-old divorced David has made it clear that he wants no more children. No amount of hopeful rationalization on Lucy's part can turn emotionally remote David into ""the Genius of Affection"" she wants him to be, and after their abrupt, traumatic breakup and an intense and agonizing rendezvous with the still-deadlocked Michael, Lucy continues to struggle with her feeling that she must ""change her life or die."" She slowly revives as she helps another colleague, Arthur Wall, nurse his terminally ill wife through her last few weeks. Their potential romance is stifled by Arthur's guilt and sadness after his wife's death, but he is instrumental in helping Lucy bring about her major life change. When Lucy decides to trust her instincts, she finds the existence she desires, which includes a child. Although the characters here are caught up in the sometimes rarified concerns of academia, their problems with stalled or painful relationships and their quests for ordinary happiness make them recognizable and accessible, and Sides skillfully portrays Lucy as an earthy, intelligent woman trying to navigate the treacherous yet potentially transcendent vagaries of midlife. (Aug.)