The Smash-up by Ali Benjamin: A review

Ali Benjamin has taken her inspiration from Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome, even borrowing the name of its title character. Her Ethan and his wife Zenobia ("Zo") and their 11-year-old daughter Alex have moved from New York to the village of Starkfield, Massachusetts, a fictional town in the Berkshires, in search of a quieter, less complicated life. Starkfield is described as possessing "a nondescript village green, around which are scattered a handful of small businesses, no more than one of every variety." It sounds idyllic, but it doesn't quite work out that way.

Ethan is the semiretired co-founder of a media start-up. His former partner is being accused by a former employee of sexual harassment and exploitation and he is pressuring Ethan to support him. Zenobia is a struggling filmmaker who gets deeply involved with a local activist group called All Them Witches. It is September 2018 and the Senate confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh are in progress. The "Witches'" outrage is palpable. Meanwhile, Alex is completely obsessed with "Wicked" and she is seriously impulse-challenged. She attends Rainbow Seed School and the parents of some of her classmates are not happy about that and are trying to push her out. The family lives in a half-restored (they've run out of money to complete the restoration) house with their aging dog, Hypatia, and a boarder/babysitter named Maddy. All of these challenges are threatening to crumble the Fromes' marriage.

For the Fromes, the 2016 presidential election marked "the break between before and after, then and now." Ethan was convinced that it was really no big deal and everything would be okay because this is America. Zo's reaction is white-hot fury. That's when she came to help organize the group that became All Them Witches, a sobriquet bestowed by some old guy who was appalled at their activities. They happily adopted it as their own. The group organizes, makes posters, and marches to protest. They meet twice a week, many of them proudly wearing their pink hats.

With Zo's involvement with her group, Ethan suddenly has more of the household's domestic responsibilities. He has more of the care of Alex, including making sure she gets to bed on time. He feels all of these added responsibilities as something of an imposition, a sentiment with which Maddy sympathizes. The reader might here suspect that these two are headed toward an affair and Ethan seems like he would welcome that but Maddy has other things on her mind.

The fraught politics of the time impact all of their lives and it seems that the Fromes have forgotten why they moved to Starkfield in the first place. They had hoped to build a supportive and peaceful idyll that would encourage creativity and provide an environment where their daughter could develop into her best self. All of those good intentions now seem at risk. Can this marriage be saved? Should it be?

Ali Benjamin is a skilled writer. She tells her story through the character of Ethan. She presents him as a well-intentioned but misguided husband and father who doesn't really understand why his wife is so angry and what she is trying to accomplish through her activism. At the same time, Zo is presented sympathetically and we can see, as perhaps she can't, that Ethan himself may, in fact, be one of the men who is part of the problem that her group is protesting. Meanwhile, they both at times seem to lose sight of their daughter's needs. There are no real heroes here and it is hard to know just who one should root for. I choose Alex. She is a delightful character and her part in this narrative is often quite funny. The levity is most welcome.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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