Becoming Strangers

Louise Dean's first novel focuses on the stories of two couples who travel to a holiday resort in the Caribbean as a treat from their children. None of the four individuals particularly want to go on this holiday, but they feel obligated to because both couples realise that it might be the last one that they have together. Both couples are struggling to deal with illness. A middle-aged Belgian couple named Annemieke and Jan go on this holiday with the knowledge that Jan is suffering from a terminal cancer. The older English couple named George and Dorothy realise that Dorothy is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's disease. Despite the depressing idea of couples going on a final holiday while facing their own mortality may seem terribly depressing, Dean is able to suffuse the narrative with comic touches that gives it a great deal of humanity and makes it a rewarding, moving read. This thirty-four year old writer has unusual insight into the complex way a long term marriage can develop a significance beyond the mere routines which come with the bonding of two people. In some ways the individual identity of each person becomes lost because the memories from each of their lives are inextricably linked to this other person. What the characters in this novel are struggling to decide is if they will lose their own sense of themselves if they leave their partner. George tries to meticulously record his past by writing a memoir and Annemieke attempts to completely rediscover a self worth in anonymous sexual encounters. Dean's writing is incredibly enjoyable to read in its richly detailed short chapters and startlingly emotional scenes. At the same time it is able to explore some very complex ideas about the nature of relationships and personality in original, meaningful ways. This is a unique and beautiful first novel.

Against a lush Caribbean landscape, two couples on vacation meet and act out the small dramas of their marriages in a careful study of relationships honed on habit and unhappiness. But in this tropical paradise, an elegant resort that caters to its guests' every whim, both couples will come to terms with the realities of their choices. Jan DeGroot is dying of cancer, although he has gamely fought its determined advance for the last six years: "The knife-and-forking of his body seemed to give a perverse impetus to his will to survive." This Northern European couple has been sent on their "last holiday" by their grown sons, Annemieke DeGroot long trapped in her own discontent, almost anxious to get on with the rest of her life, her beauty fading while she waits for Jan's demise. In contrast, George and Dorothy, an English couple, have been married nearly sixty years, their habits entrenched with the daily bickering over nonsense that has become familiar. George makes friends with Jan, though Dorothy and Annemieke could hardly be less compatible. Yet the heightened awareness of distance brings a flavor of friendship, at least for the men, who surprisingly find a sympathetic ear as they exchange stories and disappointments, lingering over drinks. While Dorothy drifts along in her own musings, George's complaints turn to a more honest appraisal of their shared years: "You couldn't tell him that there was any marriage that wasn't equal measure love and hate." Even Dorothy enjoys occasional insights, although she'd rather be at home amid her things: "Being an old lady was not as hard as being an old man." With a supporting cast of other resort-goers, a South African with a penchant for honesty who has a short fling with Annemieke, a long-haired, tattooed tile-setter, "the Americans" who demand their needs be instantly attended and the resort director, Jan and George sort through memories and plans for the future, limited though it may be, while Annemieke thrashes about in an effort to avoid her own shortcomings. The characters are drawn with deft precision, their flaws and eccentricities stark against the lush background of the Caribbean resort. Each couple suffers the detritus of years of marriage, the petty rivalries and jealousies, silences and resentments. The author writes with such clarity that each page bespeaks a glance into a mirror, these protagonists as familiar as the spouse who snores when sleeping or habitually remarks on the other's failures, days of meant-to-do-better, years finally passed. In a novel that is neither maudlin nor depressing, the author carefully manipulates the myriad contradictions of each marriage with a compassionate eye and a talent for incisive observation, balancing flaws, fictions and attributes in an incisive characters study. Luan Gaines/ 2006.