Widow for One Year- John Irving

Have had this book for some years but never got around to reading it. Quite enjoyed it especially the beginning and the ending. I got bored around the middle. Story began with Marion and Ted Cole, Eddie O'Hare, and Ruth Cole. Marion and Ted had lost their sons in a freak car accident and Marion never got over the loss. Ted was a famous children's book writer and was often infidel. He hired Eddie one summer to be his assistant but it turned out that Ted had a more sinister plan in mind. as expected by Ted, Eddie, then 16, fell in love with the sad Marion, who was 39. The love affair lasted almost the whole summer but with Marion eventually abandoning her family, including the 4-year old Ruth Cole. Marion couldn't bring herself to love another child; afraid that one day she might lose Ruth too. 

I guess this is true for many of us. We are afraid to love because we fear losing. Love and lose, just a letter different. 

Anyway Eddie became a writer but not a very good one, as all his books were about that summer affair. He never got over loving Marion.

Ruth also grew up to be a writer and Eddie's life continued to be intertwined with the Coles. But he never found out where Marion was except that he discovered that she too, had became a writer under a nom de plume. She had included descriptions of her lost boys in her stories as part of her grieving process.

Ruth was the more successful of the three and had a love-hate relationship with her father, as she knew of his infidelity with other women. The last straw came when she finally learnt that Ted had been sleeping with her best friend, hannah. Ted Cole eventually committed suicide when he learnt from Ruth that one of his squash mates had abused her.

Ruth then married Allan, her editor, because he was a safe choice but he later died from cardiac arrest. She then met Harry, a street cop from Amsterdam, where she had been to research her story. She had witnessed the murder of a prostitute and had written to Harry with the clues. Harry only realized it was Ruth who wrote to him after reading one of her novels. 

I liked the ending when Marion finally got in touch with Eddie and then Ruth. Eddie and Marion fell in love again despite 37 years of being apart. When Ruth saw Marion and Eddie, she was in tears. Marion said to her," darling, it's just Eddie and me." The same phrase she said to her when Ruth had walked in on them together, when she was 4.