Henry, Ho Hum

Stewart has written two of my favorite books of all time (A Prayer for the Dying and The Names of the Dead), so I had really high hopes for this. I was disappointed to find that the bite and snap of the previously mentioned books was completely missing. His writing ability hasn't changed, it's just that there was basically no plot. Jot down the daily ramblings of a retired person, and there you have it. I'm not saying that one has to have a crisis every day to lead an interesting life, but the story just didn't go anywhere. Henry sees a woman from afar while golfing, shortly after he was musing about his past love. We all wonder: Could this be her? Well, we never find out because that woman he saw on the course had nothing to do with the storyline. Or anything else. She was just glimpsed while he golfed. This meandering narrative is pretty typical of every chapter. Furthermore, the brittle relationship between Henry and Emily creates such a bleak overtone that it was just plain sad. While Henry is long suffering and saintly, his wife is admirable in her efficiency but intimately frosty. She never volunteers a kind word to her husband, leaving us all feeling the loneliness that permeates this book. Stewart, in the past, has dazzled with the big twist at the end, but that certainly didn't happen here. No pivot, no plot, no point. I just didn't get it.