The Silent Treatment

February 15, 2020
In this debut novel, a man looks back at his relationship with his wife and tries to figure out where it went wrong in hopes that there's still time to make things right. When Frank's wife, Maggie, collapses in their home, she ends up in a medically induced coma with an unclear prognosis. The nurse on duty tells Frank to talk to her--it's good for patients to hear their loved ones' voices. The only problem? Frank hasn't spoken to Maggie in six months. Although Maggie has pleaded with him to speak to her, Frank has been unable to say a single word. And now, as his time might be running out, Frank attempts to tell Maggie what happened--starting with recounting the story of their entire 40-year relationship. Frank recalls the good times (their charming meet-cute at a bar, their early dates, their travels) as well as the hard times (years of loss and infertility). And then the arrival of their daughter, Eleanor, which changed everything. The story is as much about Frank's and Maggie's difficult individual relationships with Eleanor as she grows up and begins to pull away from them as it is about their relationship with each other. Although the story is largely told from Frank's point of view as he talks directly to Maggie, the reader also sees Maggie's journal entries, meant for Frank to read. Greaves writes their distinct voices expressively and assuredly, making both characters come alive. Their struggle to help their daughter as she flounders is both realistic and moving, and it's almost impossible not to like Frank and Maggie as they do everything they can to save her. A sometimes-hopeful, often heartbreaking look at the difficult and beautiful moments of parenting and marriage.

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April 6, 2020
Greaves’s confident, bittersweet debut explores an unhappy married couple’s enduring love. After Maggie, Frank’s wife of 40 years, is induced into a coma following an apparent suicide attempt, Frank spends hours at her hospital bedside. Despite Frank’s shame and reluctance, a persistent nurse encourages Frank to talk to his inert wife. What the nurse doesn’t know, however, is that Frank and Maggie haven’t spoken to one another in six months. The reasons for their silence unfold in dual narratives of their courtship, marriage, and heartbreaking journey through parenthood, related first in Frank’s bedside confession and later in Maggie’s letters that he finds. After years of childlessness early in their marriage, Frank and Maggie were overjoyed at the birth of their daughter, Eleanor, now a college dropout. The bliss faded as Eleanor suffered from depression and drug addiction as a teenager. While Greaves’s choice to tell the story through both Frank’s and Maggie’s voices yields occasional moments of redundancy, she finds a poignant distance between their perspectives. Greaves creates an affecting sense of irony: Maggie and Frank adore one another, but retreat into silence instead of finding strength by sharing their heartache and facing their struggles together. While this affecting tale covers well-trod ground, it still packs an emotional punch.

March 1, 2020
Six months of silence serves as a unique catalyst for examining the history of Frank and Maggie's marriage. Maggie doesn't know why Frank stopped talking, but after six months, she's had enough, and she swallows a handful of sleeping pills. Encouraged by a kind nurse, Frank sits by an unconscious Maggie's side in the hospital, determined to tell her what he hasn't been able to share, the reason for his silence. Every love story must start at the beginning, and Frank recounts theirs from their meeting through the ups and downs that could have destroyed them but somehow never diminished their devotion. Greaves finds extraordinary in the ordinary, carefully pulling apart this seemingly happy marriage to reveal the guilt and desperation that lie beneath. Frank and Maggie's struggle to define themselves when life doesn't meet their expectations is full of intensity and emotion, their love for one another the only constant. With the sincerity and hope of Tayari Jones' An American Marriage (2018) and the thoughtful, circumspect snapshots of marriage in Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies (2015), Greaves' debut depicts the many joys and sorrows that make up a marriage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)