Lives and Choices

I have been reading The Good Parents by Joan London, My Candlelight Novel by Joanne Horniman and Michael Tolliver Lives by Armistead Maupin. An odd little collection of books reall. Their cocktail of disparate characters from Perth, Lismore and San Francisco have left me thinking about those who chose their lives and those who let their lives choose them.

The Good Parents is a wonderful book – complex and detailed. At its centre are Toni and Jacob, parents of eighteen year old Maya who has disappeared. They are an attractive couple: “The couple didn’t think of themselves as old. They wore jeans and leather jackets and much-polished RM Williams boots, more like aging rockers than hippies…You could say a sort of small town version of Nick Nolte and Anjelica Huston”. They are ostensibly happy together and are "good parents". However the stress of their daughter's disappearance causes flashback reflections on their lives so far and the choices they have not made. Jacob remembers a moment in his youth when studying for his exams he abandons his study to elicitly read War and Peace, achieving a lack lustre grade for his beloved English, and by default falling into a career as an English teacher in a country town. Toni's good looks catch the eye of a gangster at the bus stop and she defaults into marriage. Toni and Jacob connect by accident, run away and have a family.

The minor characters are great. Jacob's sister Kitty, also a teacher, falls into a lifetime of unsatisfying relationships having at one stage "three abortions in a year". Her story - a passionate fling with the possibility of a last chance child - was poignant. Maya, the teenager who is seduced by her truly horrible boss, is also passive, passive character. What was she thinking?

Armistad Maupin's friendly tome was a contrast in confidence! Still living despite his HIV (hence the title), Michael at 55 has found love again with Ben, a lovely man in his thirties. Despite small moments of insecurity, Michael is so confident sexually. In fact all of the characters are. It must be a San Francisco thing! It's interesting despite the big differences in worlds, there are those universal touchstones - Michael's mother is dying and he has to deal with this.

Joanne Horniman's book tells the story of Sophie a single mum in her twenties. Sophie loves reading and her daughter and is inspiringly resilient really, but doesn't dare to dream to want the best for herself. What is up with this? it's everywhere....