Anita Shreve’s latest finely crafted novel of modern manners, A Wedding in December (Time Warner, CDs or tapes, £14.99, offer £13.49), concerns the emotional subject of college friends meeting up again in later life.
The setting is a luxurious inn in New England, once the home, now the way of life of Nora, the widow of a flamboyant poet whom she married when she was 19 and he 49. “I was his helpmeet,” she confesses without apology to Harrison, who has never forgotten her or the might-have-beens that could have made them lovers when they were 17. The occasion of the reunion is the long-delayed wedding of Bill and Bridget, two other former sweethearts. Frisson is added by the fact that Bridget is being treated for cancer. Counterpointing this retracing of roads not taken is a novel being written by a fifth classmate, Agnes, who has been having an affair with their college professor ever since their days together. Overshadowing all their memories is the undiscussed tragedy of the night that Stephen, Nora’s boyfriend and Harrison’s best friend, drowned while drunk at a beach party.
A complex plot for an abridged audiobook, but Liza Ross’s lucid reading allows us to distinguish between the inner novel and the outer one, and Kati Nicholl’s sensitivity to cutting means that the story bowls along without losing any of the atmosphere.
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