Nom de Plume

Dannie Faber has the perfect life: she is a successful children’s book illustrator; her grown children are doing well; she spends most of her time living in a modest house on Cape Cod, where she feels most at peace. Then we discover that her husband Tom, who teaches at MIT, lives primarily in their their house in Boston. And in the beginning we accept this with equanimity — after all, there are many different types of relationships.

Then a wealthy hotel magnate constructs a monstrous house reviled by the neighborhood — the trophy house of the title — disurbing Dannie’s equilibrium in more ways than one. Her 30-year old daughter comes home because of a failed relationship and an existential crisis due to unfulfilling work. The book editor that she has worked with for years wants to meet in New York in person. Tom, who has been distant, embarks upon an affair and leaves her. She begins her own affair with the editor, David. Even her best friend on the Cape isn’t immune from change; she quits running her bed and breakfast and moves in with the hotel tycoon, a crass, materialistic man.

Although Dannie ends up divorced and living with David in New York, she isn’t happy living in the city, and proposes the same compromise that she had with her husband: they live alone and then get together on weekends. And this is what struck me about the novel: she starts out in a marriage that isn’t really a marraige and ends up in a relationship that isn’t really a relationship.

Ultimately, Dannie is someone who has accepted mediocrity. She clearly states that she became an illustrator because she didn’t have the talent to become an artist. She lived with Tom for years, pretending that they were happy. The book closes with her doing the same with David. Although many may not agree, I ultimately found this to be a terrifying book, not because of subject matter or suspense or ominous Jaws-like music or anything like that, but because it so clearly illuminates the compromises we all make to be with the people we love.