The Obituary Writer (by Ann Hood)

I would probably never have come across Ann Hood or her novel ‘The Obituary Writer’, had I not overheard some folk at a church book sale talking about a local reading group, where they had discussed some books I had very much liked. Out of curiosity I enquired about it and was warmly invited, as well as being issued with a list of books to be read each month for the rest of the year.

One of the aims of this group is for members to read books they would not normally read, and as that’s something I was hoping to start doing, it seemed ideal. So I ordered the first few books on the list, from the Amazon Marketplace or AwesomeBooks. Despite not having read the first book on the list (other than a Kindle sample) I attended the first meeting nearly four weeks ago, and very much enjoyed it.

‘The Obituary Writer’ was the book to be read for this month. However, events have moved on rapidly in the past few weeks. Our country is in lockdown mode due to the covid-19 pandemic, and groups are not allowed to meet. Nevertheless, I decided to read this book at what would have been the correct time. I had no idea what to expect, but quickly got into it. Overall, I thought it an interesting, well-written and thought-provoking story.

It’s a two-stranded plot, featuring two rather different women, set in two distinct time periods in different parts of the United States. Claire is the person we first meet, towards the end of 1960. She’s a suburban housewife and the mother of a small girl called Kathy. And as we learn in the first sentence, she had an affair.

This was not something that she had ever thought would happen: her husband Peter is kind, and supportive, and while he takes most of the decisions (feminists would decry her submissive tendencies) she’s content enough in a period of history when most women were expected to stay at home with the children, and look after all the domestic issues.

But something tragic happened in their neighbourhood, and Claire found herself seeing her husband and her life in a different light. When she meets a man who seems to be a kindred spirit, full of empathy and interested in her opinions, she falls for him in a big way. The affair is already over when the story starts, but Claire is pregnant, and she’s pretty sure that her husband is not the father…

The other main character is a woman called Vivien, who is in her late thirties in 1919. She writes obituaries; not for national papers, nor with the traditional style of factual information. Instead she writes thoughtful insights into the lives of people she has never met, after meeting their bereaved families and talking, at length, about the people who have died.

Vivien has spent thirteen years grieving for her lost lover, a married man whom she has not seen since a major earthquake. She’s never had confirmation that he died, so she keeps hoping he might turn up, and is unwilling to start another relationship. But her ability to write moving obituaries comes, in part, as a result of her own loss.

The chapters alternate between Claire’s story, and Vivien’s. Claire and her husband and daughter are going to travel to Peter’s mother’s eightieth birthday party, in a blizzard in January 1961, the night before the US President John F Kennedy is inaugurated. Claire has been working for the President’s campaign, and was hoping to get together with her local friends to watch the ceremony on television and have a kind of sweepstake on the colour of Jackie’s dress. Instead, she goes along with her husband's wishes.

Meanwhile Vivien meets different people to write their obituaries, and spends time with her friends, particularly Lotte and her small daughter Pamela. Some of her most painful meetings and writing are related to children who died in the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, and unfortunately it hasn’t finished. Reading this section while the Coronavirus pandemic is at its peak was quite poignant.

I have to say I didn’t find any of the main characters particularly warm or appealing; they’re likeable enough, but not entirely three-dimensional, and rather worryingly blasé about committing adultery. The children don’t develop much personality at all, and there are a lot of minor characters who blended into each other in my mind.

But the writing is good, the conversation believable, and the two stories well-blended. When the inevitable link between the two main characters is uncovered, quite late in the book, I hadn’t seen it coming at all. It makes sense, and in the final chapters the two storylines draw closer together in a nicely crafted way.  The ending is a tad ambiguous, but that’s not a bad thing, leaving the future somewhat open.

There’s much to inspire discussion in the book; some questions are suggested in the back, but I could see many more topics that could arise. Several issues come to light, including some that might trigger unpleasant memories or grief in readers. I hope that one day I may be able to join a discussion about this book.

No violence, no detailed bedroom scenes, and almost no bad language. Recommended, if you like women’s fiction with a bit more bite than many novels.

Review copyright 2020 Sue's Book Reviews