I don’t know what to make of this book.
It won the Man Booker, and I usually like Man Booker winners, and while I did enjoy most of this book, I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, and it’s amazing how much the ending can influence our entire opinion of a book.
The story is told by an older man, Tony Webster, as he looks back on his life. He thinks about his childhood friend, Adrian, with whom Tony perhaps wanted to feel close more than he actually felt close. Even as a young boy Adrian was always very serious and thoughtful, which meant he tended to say things that were more insightful than anything Tony or any of his other friends said. This made him appear more intelligent, and as a result, Tony and his friends all wanted to impress him, and to impress upon each other how close they were with Adrian.
Tony also reminisces about his first real girlfriend, Veronica, and how badly that relationship ended either before or after they had sex. It’s not clear which happened first because Tony admits to being an unreliable narrator and he’s very cavalier about whether the breakup occurred before or after the intercourse. He seemed to feel that Veronica had sex with him to try to get him back, and (according to Tony), Veronica seemed to feel wronged when it didn’t work, saying it was tantamount to rape. Tony is deliberately fuzzy on the details, and the cavalier way he treats what may or may not be Veronica’s virginity I found to be pretty disturbing. Having been dumped by a boyfriend in college because I wouldn’t put out, I tend to be pretty sensitive to stories where the boy doesn’t feel like he’s getting anything out of a relationship if he’s not getting laid.
But both Tony and Veronica move on pretty quickly after the breakup and Veronica starts dating Adrian, who then writes to Tony to ask if Tony would be OK with the new relationship. Tony remembers sending off a postcard acknowledging receipt of Adrian’s letter and wishing them all the best before going off to road trip around America. Upon his return, he’s informed that Adrian has committed suicide.
Forty or so years later, Veronica’s mother has died and left Tony some money, as well as Adrian’s diary, but Veronica doesn’t want to give up the diary. Tony doesn’t particularly want the diary, except for the fact that Veronica’s mother left it to him, and so he feels he has a right to it, so he and Veronica are thrown together again and Veronica is very unhappy about it.
Instead of the diary, Veronica returns to Tony the letter he initially sent to Adrian after hearing he and Veronica had gotten together and it turns out it is absolutely nothing like Tony remembers. It is full of extremely hurtful things, and when Tony realizes what transpired after he sent the letter and some of the parallels between what he said and what transpired, he’s forced to reckon with the reality of his actions, rather than the nice story he preferred to tell himself for 40 years.
If nothing else, it’s certainly an interesting book about the stories we tell ourselves and how we always manage to cast ourselves in the best light in those stories, regardless of the truth or how we hurt (and forget we hurt) other people.