20, NG13, F11, E20

Lisa Jewell, The Third Wife

Auch dieses Buch saugte mich binnen kürzester Zeit in das faszinierende und komplizierte Familiendrama hinein und ließ mich nicht mehr los, so dass ich das Buch einmal mehr viel schneller aushatte als geplant. Besonders bewunderswert ist hier, wie gekonnt Jewell mit den Erwartungen des Lesers spielt bis sich bei der Auflösung am Schluß alles anders herausstellt als gedacht.

He was aware that there would always be the last time for these intimate nuances of his relationships with his children and that often that time would pass unnoticed. When, for example, had Cat sat on his lap for the last time? When had he last kissed Otis on the lips, picked Pearl up in his arms, called Luke one of his childhood nicknames, held Beau up on his shoulders? He had no idea. He thought of crying at the leavers' ceremonies of his oldest children, knowing that he would never again see them in their primary uniforms, that they would never again be little. But there were no ceremonies for these other 'lasts', no realisation or acknowledgement that something precious was about to end.
.
She had been so desperate to be a part of this, had watched the machinations of this life from a distance all those months, marvelling at the magical glow of it all: the Islington townhouse, the trophy wives and darling children, the weekends away en masse, the ramshackle parties, the legends, the traditions, the glittering story of them all and their sprawling mass of friends and people. She'd seen it, she'd smelled it and she'd wanted it. And now it was hers. And, like a shiny thing seen and coveted through the plate-glass windows of a fancy shop, now she had it in her hands it had lost its allure.
.
(Lisa Jewell, The Third Wife, 2014)