Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen

I've enjoyed Anna Quindlen's writing, both fiction and nonfiction, for years.  Some of her turns of phrase have found their way into my file of favorite quotes, particularly those related to reading and memories. Her latest novel Alternate Side deals on the surface with parking issues most particular  to New York City, though an increasing challenge in any growing city. Nora Nolan, the protagonist, loves living in the city, even though her husband Charlie wants her to consider relocating somewhere else. He even takes her to Asheville, NC, as part of his project.

They live on a cul-de-sac, where Charlie finally lands a prized parking space in the lot on their block.  While Nora lives among the more affluent local New Yorkers, working at a surprisingly successful jewelry museum, a vanity project of the woman who established it with her own collection, she also interacts with the residents of a single residency building; Charity, the housekeeper who helped raise her now grown twins; Ricky, on whom they depend for odd jobs on their street; and even Phil, the panhandler near her work who only pretends to be homeless.

When a neighbor attacks Ricky for blocking the parking lot entrance with his work van, sending him to the hospital, neighbors and family members draw lines and take sides. Everything about the neighborhood dynamic is affected.

At the heart of the story, though, is the examination of Nora and Charlie's marriage. In fact, throughout the novel, Quindlen through Nora has so much to say about marriage. When Nora considers her father and step mother's marriage, Quindlen writes:

      She thought that people sought marriage because it meant they could put aside the mascara, the  
      bravado, the good clothes, the company manners, and be themselves, whatever that was, not try
      so hard. But what that seemed to mean was that they didn't try at all. In the beginning they all
      spent so much time trying to know the other person, asking questions, telling stories, wanting to
      burrow beneath the skin. But then you  married and naturally were supposed to know one another
      down to the ground, and so stopped asking, answering, listening. It seemed foolish, fifteen years
      in, to lean across the breakfast table and say, By the way, are you happy? Do you like this life?
      Familiarity bred contempt, she'd read somewhere, or at least inattention, but sometimes it seemed
      more like a truce without a war first: these are the terms of engagement, this is what is, let's not
      dwell on what's not.

As I read, I remembered a book I started (and abandoned) recently in which the couple, marking their tenth anniversary together, are told by their primary care physician that with changing longevity expectations, they might have 63 more years together. What was meant to be good news was not received as such.

Over the course of this novel, Nora takes a look at the trajectory of her life, considers her options and those any changes will affect. What results is an evenhanded narrative of adult life after the empty nest and a subtle suggestion that one should consider that those around us live much more complicated, layered lives than we can ever observe.

Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen