One of his first ‘lessons’ in navigating comes in the form of explaining that a pilot learns to rely on his instruments and ignore sensory messages. Robert is a sailor and a pilot and he delights in sharing navigational information with Elizabeth. Robert’s preference for control is also expressed in a sailing analogy: “I’m on starboard tack. It’s suggested that many scullers develop the habit of looking over their shoulders a neat way of describing how both Robert’s and Elizabeth’s tendency to look backwards into the past affects their ability to move ahead into the future. For instance, one chapter heading addresses itself to scullers who have difficulties having their boat run straight. Each of them, (mostly to do with navigation), parallels a development in the plot of this romance, and appropriately so, as this is a novel about being orientated and disorientated in emotional relationships. One of my favourite things about this book were the chapter headings which were taken from various field guides. There is no suspense in the plot-line, needless to say instead, the author examines how the emotional accretions of previous relationships affect and limit each character’s ability to ‘bond’ (for lack of a better word) with a new partner. The story is told in first-person, from Elizabeth’s point of view, and from the beginning we know that the relationship hasn’t worked out. The protagonists are Robert (52, an architect, father of one son, separated but not divorced) and Elizabeth (40, a writer, divorced, longing for a child).

However, I suspect that might be the case. The novel was so close to home for me (and I mean that both symbolically and literally) that I cannot really judge if all of its specificities mean that it will, conversely, lack a more universal appeal. Again, there is a striking verisimilitude if one lives in London, is educated, middle-class, etc. The book takes place in London, and is quite detailed about London places: restaurants, cinemas, neighbourhoods, Tube lines, flower markets, etc. It is entirely about the fraught nature of midde-aged dating, and therefore probably most interesting (and most unsettling) for those readers whose lives mirror those of the two main characters. But it's really nothing spectacular, and I was mostly bored or annoyed reading it.Ī dear friend gave this book to me - with a laughing warning - for my recent birthday. The breakup is quiet, and eventually they both drift, with a hopeful ending to round off the story. I have no words, except that if any of my girlfriends were dating someone like that, I would probably step in and physically drag them away from the guy. He resembled a man-child to me and it was so evident a few chapters in that he was only leading Elizabeth on for his own pleasure. As for Robert, I thought he was the most manipulative ass ever. You'd think that at that age, a woman would be able to spot red flags in a partner and run far away, or at least learn to take the advice of her well-meaning girlfriends. But then she proceeds to spend a few pages analysing how she only loves him because it's nice to feel wanted, and she wants someone, anyone, to have a kid with.

Elizabeth refuses to listen to her friends when they tell her all the red flags about Robert, because 'she loves him'. The story navigates the ups and downs of middle-aged dating, which perhaps was something I absolutely couldn't relate to, but I found the characters annoying. I wondered then how many relationships were structured in this way, so that people everywhere were doing what Robert had done, and making a life alongside another person without much minding who they were, as long as they filled a gap which would otherwise be empty. Lying there in bed, listening to his small-cat breathing, it struck me that that was what I'd been to him from the start, when I'd gone to meet him as Susie's stand-in: a someone, filling in for someone else. I remembered again his description of what he wanted from a relationship, when he'd recited his litany of 'someones'. He has no intention whatsoever of having another child with her, because he already has a son. But as time passes, she begins to realise that Robert is only in the relationship for companionship and sex. Yet when she meets Robert, she dares to let herself hope he could be different, and that she will have a child with him. Besides, she's had problems becoming emotionally intimate with anyone ever since her ex-husband left. She has friends, places to go to, and family to love, and is perfectly comfortable in her independent, single lifestyle. Essentially a book about a woman who falls in love with a man who strings her along for sex, nothing more.Īfter her marriage dissolves due to a miscarriage and failed pregnancy, Elizabeth has been single for four years.

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