An unbelievable 'Wedding'

Implausible plot makes it difficult for readers to engage

Cathie Beck, Special to the News

Friday, October 21, 2005

The problem with A Wedding in December, Anita Shreve's Big Chill-like novel, jumps out at readers from the start: Would seven 45-year-olds drop their lives - after next-to-no contact for nearly 30 years - to attend a wedding of mutual high school friends?

Would a world-renowned concert pianist be able to abandon his performance schedule to fly to the other side of the world for people with whom he's had virtually no relationship with for decades? Would he even want to?

Such is the implausibility problem underlying what is otherwise a pleasant and compelling-enough story.

Seven former high school classmates meet up - after almost three decades apart - for the wedding of Bridget and Bill, two of the group who were high school sweethearts separated at youth and are back together. The wedding serves as the catalyst for the reunion, made more poignant because Bridget has breast cancer.

Underlying the wedding is the shared loss of the charming and popular Stephen, a friend of the group who died as a teenager in a tragic drowning - the vehicle Shreve, unfortunately, depends upon as her characters' motivation to reunite.

The ceremony takes place in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. Among the players:

• Nora hosts everyone at her bed-and-breakfast, former home to her and her deceased poet husband.

• Agnes is a single English teacher who pines for her absent lover, the group's former English teacher. This is a secret she spills to the crowd after drinking too much at the wedding reception.

• Harrison is still in love with Nora, although Stephen was Nora's love - and Harrison's best friend - back in high school.

• Jerry's a jerk and a businessman.

• Rob has come out since graduating.

With the exception of Rob, the friends all harbor unresolved regrets, disappointments and not a little arrested-development dynamics.

The novel feels like a family drama with a dose of soap opera thrown in. The cast is built of the middle- to upper-class: Harrison is married to a lawyer and works in publishing. Agnes teaches. Bill's a businessman, etc. - no bus drivers or government workers here.

There's the requisite Sept. 11 references and also a story-within-a-story: Readers are made privy to Agnes' writing about a ship explosion in Halifax Harbor at the turn of the century that killed 2,000 people, chapters Shreve presents to readers throughout A Wedding in December.

Shreve uses Agnes' work and some of her internal dialogue as a vehicle for Agnes to come to terms with her life of secrecy and shortcomings.

Shreve excels at nuance and detail. She skillfully illuminates the tiniest of moments, offering readers a peek at the complex undertones coursing through the characters throughout the story:

"Nora raised a hand and snapped her fingers, a sharp, skilled summons that cleared the air at once," Shreve writes. "Two waiters appeared and began to take away the salads and to set down the entrees. Bridget's salmon was translucent. Bill's was well done. Bridget exchanged plates. Jerry had to dismantle his aggressive posture to allow his beef to be set in front of him."

Moreover, Shreve gets credit for the sophisticated writing-within-her-own-writing construction - a dangerous structure that can be irritating if done poorly. In this case, it's often better than the larger story itself.

The Halifax Harbor explosion involves a young eye surgeon who witnesses the ship's explosion, then ends up marrying his hostess, who was blinded in the explosion. At first, it's a distracting element to A Wedding in December, but two-thirds of the way into the work, the surgeon's quest to find his real love, coupled with his eventual resignation into a loveless marriage, is not only as compelling as A Wedding's story line - it's more so.

Shreve is difficult to toss aside because her prose appears effortless and intimate. She's probably best known for The Pilot's Wife, made into a popular movie. In this particular work, though, her strengths are outdone by the story's weaknesses.

There's a sense of superficiality to this Wedding, and the set-up feels contrived. In the end, Shreve's new novel is simply not believable.

Cathie Beck is a freelance writer living in Denver. She recently completed a memoir, "Cheap Cabernet."