For richer, for poorer
Complex novel proves acclaim for young author is well-deserved
Fates and Furies is one of those books that has left me unsure how to describe it. Don’t get me wrong — that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It’s damn good, even if difficult to describe.
It begins with the sudden marriage of Lotto and Mathilde, who have just graduated university and decided impulsively to get married. Mathilde is mysterious, a model who never socialized with anyone during college until she appeared at a grad party. Lotto, real name Lancelot, is heir to a fortune, handsome, a playboy and an aspiring actor.
Lotto is cut off from the family fortune when his mother learns of the marriage. The couple are unperturbed and carry on with their lives, struggling at first, later successful. Fates and Furies is the story of their marriage, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer.
Lauren Groff tells the tale first from Lotto’s perspective, then from Mathilde’s. Lotto is a happy man, for the most part an open book who is satisfied and content. Mathilde is more complicated, and made more so because readers are not truly introduced to her until the book’s second half.
Were this merely a book about the pair’s life together, it would be a great novel. It spans decades, includes unforgettable characters, speaks of a deep love and marks the passage of the late 20th century and early 21st. But Fates and Furies is so much more than just a turn-ofthe-century love story.
However, that’s about all I can say. Any more and I risk spoiling the fun for others who plan to read this book.
Suffice it to say, Groff is an extremely gifted writer. She is also the author of the novel The Monsters of Templeton; her collection of stories Delicate Edible Birds is shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers; and her work Arcadia is a New York Times Notable Book, a winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award.
With Fates and Furies, she brings shifting perspectives and enough plot complexities to fill six or seven other novels. It includes the themes of art, creativity, grief, secrets and lies, truth and perception. It includes snippets from invented stage plays, imagined dialogues, nightmares and childhood remembrances. The couple’s friends and family members are each carefully drawn and familiar. Groff weaves it all together, pulling off a page-turner of a novel that will keep readers guessing.