If I Forget You

Greene (The Headmaster’s Wife) begins this dramatic novel in 2012 with two former lovers, prize-winning poet Henry Gold and Connecticut housewife Margot Baldwin, catching sight of each other on a Manhattan street. Both are instantly thrown back in time to the campus of Bannister College in 1991, where the two first met. Despite being from two different worlds—he was Jewish and poor, she was WASPy and wealthy—they fell in love. Then a tragic circumstance forced the two of them apart, and they haven’t seen or been in contact with one another since. When they finally reconnect, all those old emotions come rushing back. Will Henry, settled into his comfortable divorced-dad life in Manhattan, and Margot, trapped in a loveless marriage in which she has two children, rekindle the love they lost 21 years ago, or will old secrets and hurts stand in the way of their future happiness? Greene applies a rigorous intelligence to a familiar premise. Piled-on melodramatic elements (an overbearing father, an act of violence) and a pat ending threaten to undermine the care with which he has created two believable and empathetic characters. Nevertheless, readers will be rooting to see Henry and Margot together again despite the odds. Agent: Marly Rusoff, Marly Rusoff & Associates. (June)