Count the Ways

 

Count the Ways by Joyce Maynard

Fiction

2021 William Morrow

Finished on November 17, 2023

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family—from the hopeful early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath that ripples through all their lives.

Eleanor and Cam meet at a crafts fair in Vermont in the early 1970s. She’s an artist and writer, he makes wooden bowls. Within four years they are parents to three children, two daughters and a red-headed son who fills his pockets with rocks, plays the violin and talks to God. To Eleanor, their New Hampshire farm provides everything she always wanted—summer nights watching Cam’s softball games, snow days by the fire and the annual tradition of making paper boats and cork people to launch in the brook every spring. If Eleanor and Cam don’t make love as often as they used to, they have something that matters more. Their family.

Then comes a terrible accident, caused by Cam’s negligence. Unable to forgive him, Eleanor is consumed by bitterness, losing herself in her life as a mother, while Cam finds solace with a new young partner.

Over the decades that follow, the five members of this fractured family make surprising discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear them apart. Tracing the course of their lives—through the gender transition of one child and another’s choice to completely break with her mother—Joyce Maynard captures a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its past, and find redemption in its darkest hours.

A story of holding on and learning to let go, Count the Ways is an achingly beautiful, poignant, and deeply compassionate novel of home, parenthood, love, and forgiveness.

Oh, this was a hard one to read. As one who has experienced divorce (both as a child and as an adult with a young child), this novel hit far too close to home. It would be so easy to compare my life story with that of Eleanor's, but this platform is not intended for oversharing personal grievances or dredging up the past. Suffice it to say, Eleanor and I have much in common and my heart ached for her. Count the Ways is the proverbial train-wreck of a novel, and while heartbreaking to this reader, I couldn't pull my eyes away. I so wanted her to find happiness and bury the all-consuming bitterness (toward her ex-husband) that poisoned her relationships with her daughters. 

Joyce Maynard's attention to domestic detail is strong (some may say too strong or excessive) in all of her books, and I especially enjoyed and appreciated the historical and pop references in this latest work. A playlist from the book would include Joni Mitchell, CSN, the Stones, and Beatles, to name just a few. Maynard draws her audience into the home and heart of a woman who wants only to love and be loved by her family. As I read, I had to remind myself that Eleanor is a character in a story and not a real person who needs to be comforted and told that it does get better. 

I've been reading the works of Joyce Maynard since the late 1980s when I first discovered her weekly syndicated column, Domestic Pleasures. Since then, I have read six of her novels, and up until now, my all-time favorite was The Usual Rules; Count the Ways has taken that honor. Highly recommend.