Finding a place in the world - in the 'burbs
Belong to Me
By Marisa de los Santos
William Morrow/HarperCollins,
390 pp., $24.95
Marisa de los Santos's "Belong to Me" starts off with the facile concept and shiny gloss of page-turning chick lit. It's the story of an urban devotee's adjustments and ultimate transformation after moving with her husband to the "idyllic" suburbs. But gradually, the charmingly clever, feel-good veneer of the story begins to wear thin in spots, and when the author lets her characters drop their guard, the novel reveals layers of rich patina - the story underneath is more complex, engaging, and surprisingly moving.
The novel charts the story of Cornelia Brown, an "adventurous urbanite" who shocks herself one day by falling in love with a leafy suburb that reminds her and her husband of the cozy Virginia college town they'd grown up in. So she and handsome doctor husband Teo set out for life in the 'burbs ". . . in the manner of pioneers and pilgrims, not so bravely and with fewer sweeping consequences, but with that same combination of discouragement and hope, that simultaneous running away and running toward. I was a woman ready for a new life."
But Cornelia finds that her new life is not all cheery backyard barbecues and clusters of supportive new female friends. As she navigates the tricky terrain of her new neighborhood, she has to examine her own values and dreams on the way to forming meaningful connections. She forms an instant bond with the free-spirited, elusive Lake and her brilliant 16-year-old son, Dev. They have just moved to the same suburb so Dev can attend a school for the gifted, though he believes this move, one of many, is the one that will take him close to the absent father his mother has always hidden from him. Cornelia, still childless, is also immediately drawn to Elizabeth, tending gracefully to her children while stoically suffering from cancer. The descriptions of Elizabeth's daily life, the trials, small triumphs, and slow mental and physical decline are among the book's most convincing.
Then there's Elizabeth's best friend Piper. While Cornelia is flip and breezy with a wry sense of humor, the judgmental, impeccably groomed Piper is her opposite - prim, proper, and wrapped way too tight. She holds herself and others to impossible standards, her perfectionism masking insecurities and deep feelings, both of which emerge only in moments of stress, making her seem infuriatingly invulnerable.
Piper is almost a caricature, but de los Santos drops little details that flesh out the "who" even if they don't explain the "why," such as some of the moments that exemplify her devotion to and protectiveness of Elizabeth. "When Cornelia walked through Elizabeth's kitchen door, Piper sat serenely in her powder blue sweater and jeans, one toffee-colored loafer crossed over the other, but inside, she was all watchdog, ears pricked, nose in the air, a ridge of hair rising along her back."
The story's big soap opera-ish twist of fate strains credibility, but along the way, de los Santos delivers an interconnected network of compelling little stories. Her writing is both vividly descriptive and surprisingly insightful, as when she describes Dev's reaction to information his brain can't quite process. "For two days and two nights, Dev's brain went on vacation . . . He could see how you could get used to not-thinking, the haphazard floating through days, your brain lounging around like a tourist in a loud shirt, grasping nothing heavier than a magazine and a drink (umbrellaed, water beaded, pineapple hanging of its rim like an elephant ear) . . ."
And, in fact, though "Belong to Me" is basically Cornelia's tale, it is Dev that de los Santos captures most movingly. The novel's touching underlying story is a coming-of-age quest of a young boy searching not only for his father, but for his place in the world.
Karen Campbell is a freelance writer based in Brookline. 