William Leith12 April 2012
The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides
(4th Estate, £8.99)
In this novel, which is in the Jonathan Franzen ballpark, there’s a young woman, Madeleine, and she’s loved by two men — a sexy, mental one, and a serious, thoughtful one. The hunk is called Leonard, and he wants to be a scientist. The other guy is called Mitchell, and he’s fascinated by religion. We are in Brown university in the early Eighties. Madeleine herself is a student of old-fashioned novels, particularly Victorian ones which end up with a marriage. So there’s a nice vein of self-consciousness here. It’s absorbing, readable, clever, and he’s captured these people with real skill.
