An All-Too-Familiar Tale of Love Gone Awry

CLAIRE MARVEL

A Novel

By John Burnham Schwartz

Nan A. Talese/Doubleday

304 pages; $25

John Burnham Schwartz has made a habit of discussing the pitfalls and pinnacles of love in his writing. In his first novel, “Bicycle Days,” Schwartz tells the tale of a young American man coming of age in Japan. In “Reservation Road,” the story is of a family whose son dies in a hit-and-run, detailing how the accident twists the characters’ life trajectories.

With his new novel, “Claire Marvel,” he continues his exploration of love with a story of life’s choices and the way things don’t turn out quite the way one would expect.

The novel begins as most romances do--the fateful meeting. In front of a closed art museum during a rainstorm, Julian Rose is getting wet. Fellow Harvard grad student Claire Marvel has an umbrella. They share. He’s dumbstruck. She’s charming. The romance begins. There is ecstasy with the first kiss. The first mesmerizing talks and looks. The first time they make love.

But all is not OK. Claire’s father is dying, and she leaves to take care of him. Julian doesn’t hear from her for quite a while, so he buries himself in a dissertation on politics while assisting on a book written by his professor. He tries without success to shake Claire.

Then comes the hitch. She returns, and they suddenly go off together to the French countryside, staying at a house where Claire’s father had lodged. They can’t seem to say “I love you” to each other. They come back to the States, and their relationship goes haywire, developing into a love triangle among Julian, Claire and his professor.

They go their separate ways, Claire married to the professor, Julian teaching at the school he used to attend and marrying someone else. But even years later, Julian can’t shake the love he has for Claire, and vice versa.

In “Reservation Road,” Schwartz deftly used different points of view to lay out his tale, and one was left caring even for the man whose actions tore a family apart. The characters here are not nearly so well drawn. This novel has its moments of clear human observation, reflective thought and wisdom, but these are lost under the dull thud of cliche and predictability. From the first meeting to the woozy feelings of joy to the wrench thrown in the works to the conclusion, it feels all too familiar.

The characters love each other, they want each other, they need each other, yet they always skirt this way or that without facing the issues, hiding behind their trump cards--mysteriousness, missed opportunities.

If Julian really wanted to be with Claire, he would have tried harder. If Claire really loved Julian, she wouldn’t have gone on with the professor. But they don’t do anything about it. They just live their lives wondering, which renders them wishy-washy, however thoughtful and emotionally honest Schwartz tries to make them.