Just Jennifer

Fates and Furies by Laura Groff (Riverhead)

Lotto and Mathilde marry right out of college: at twenty-two they are a gorgeous couple living in Manhattan and seem to have it all.  As the years go by, they continue to be the envy of their friends and the one constant as life for everyone else seems to be changing, not so outwardly for Lotto and Mathilde.  Lotto is an accomplished playwright, Mathilde always landing the jobs she needs to keep the bills paid.  A quarter of a century after their marriage, things come to a grinding, heartbreaking halt.  But wait.  There’s more.  Every marriage has two sides and the second half of the book reveals Mathilde’s side in a “what really happened” moment.  Mathilde’s story is so utterly compulsive you will find yourself going back to reread the first half of the book to discover what you missed.  As powerful and electrifying the first half of the book is, the second half delivers an emotional impact so unnerving and totally exhaustive; tempered by the excitement of the revelations and perfect prose this is a novel from which you will not only be not able to look away, but one to which you will need to immediately return.