“Just as long as he doesn’t become a writer.”
“Why?” she says. “Your life hasn’t been so bad.”
No, he admits. It’s been pretty good, in fact. “I just don’t want him to write about me.”
“The way you wrote about me?” Julian hadn’t allow her to read his book until yesterday, when the first copies arrived from the publisher. She stayed up late reading it, and her first reaction was that he’d written their story. Except he’d also made things up.
“Write what you know about what you don’t know,” Julian said, “or what you don’t know about what you know.”
“Which did you do?”
“Both, I guess.”
The baby has started to cry again, and this time he’s hungry. Mia has left her nursing pillow upstairs. My Brest Friend. A name so insulting she almost didn’t buy the pillow, but everyone insisted it was worthwhile. She’s wading through the swamp of puns and cuteness, made to feel like a child herself. It’s something she has grudgingly learned to tolerate, as she tolerates the middle-of-the-night feedings. Sleepily, she carries the baby upstairs.
Alone now, Julian closes his eyes. He hears a car idling outside the window. A dog barks, and soon Cooper is barking, too. Then there is silence. So this is it, he thinks: my novel. He’ll have to wait to see what comes next. Curious Julian, Mia calls him, because their first month together he snooped through her closet and he hasn’t been able to live it down. He hears a voice in the bedroom and, indistinct as it is, he imagines his son is talking already. At least Mia is, and so, with the lights still out, everything dark, the house blanketed in shadows, he follows the sound, his dog dutifully trailing him, and heads upstairs to see what’s going on.
Acknowledgments
I owe a great debt to many people. Ian Twiss, Jason Dubow, and Beth Berkowitz read an initial version of this novel and offered invaluable insight. I am especially grateful to John Fulton, whose comments on two early drafts of this book were instrumental in setting me on the right path. A thank-you, as well, to M. J. Rose for her generosity and wise counsel. I have been fortunate to be published by Pantheon/Vintage, a writer’s dream of a publisher. I owe a particular debt to Marty Asher, who championed this book from the start, and to Dan Frank and Janice Gold-klang for their great and unswerving support. Thank you to my wonderful publicist, Liz Calamari, and to Chris Gillespie, Altie Karper, Archie Ferguson, Jolanta Benal, Wes Gott, and everyone else at Pantheon and Vintage. A special thank-you to my agent, Lisa Bankoff, who fought for this book from the day she got it and who has been, from the moment I signed on with her, a brilliant agent and a loyal friend. Finally, I want to thank my editor, Lexy Bloom, without whom this book would be a pale version of itself. Lexy’s intelligence, passion, and commitment went far beyond anything I could have hoped for; I’m so lucky to have her as my editor.
My parents, Alice and Lou Henkin, and my brothers, David and Daniel, have supported me with their love and friendship, during the writing of this book and from the start. A thank-you, as well, to my new family: Alisa Henkin, Sammy Henkin, Dahlia Henkin, Sharon Berkowitz, Jerry Berkowitz, Randi Berkowitz, Jon Regosin, Talia Berkowitz-Regosin, and Shachar Berkowitz-Regosin. Finally, to my daughters, Orly and Tamar, who have enriched my life more than I could have imagined, and to my wife, Beth, whom I ran into on a rainy night in Manhattan ten years ago. I have lived a fortunate life, but that was the greatest fortune of all; without her love, none of this would matter, not this book or anything else.
Joshua Henkin
Matrimony
Joshua Henkin is the author of the novel Swimming Across the Hudson, which was selected by the Los Angeles Times as a notable book of the year; his short stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in many journals and newspapers. He teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, Brooklyn College, and the 92nd Street Y in New York City. He lives in Brooklyn; visit him online at www.joshuahenkin.com.
ALSO BY JOSHUA HENKIN
Swimming Across the Hudson
Acclaim for Joshua Henkin’s Matrimony
“[Henkin’s characters] come alive in a spookily familiar way….[He] beautifully render[s] the give and take, back and forth of marriage over the long haul.”
—The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)
“In the tradition of John Cheever and Richard Yates, a novel about love, hope, delusion, and the intricate ways in which time’s passage raises us up even as it grinds us down. It’s a beautiful book.”
—Michael Cunningham
“Henkin writes with a winningly anachronistic absence of showiness…. A lifelike, likable book populated by three-dimensional characters who make themselves very much at home on the page.”
—The New York Times
“Henkin’s story is engrossing, so nicely does he describe first love and the intensity of longtime friendship.”
—Deseret News (Salt Lake City)
“Henkin has written a powerfully moving book about so many of the big things: romantic love, abiding friendship, commitment, betrayal, loss, hope, regret. Matrimony is a novel at once sprawling and economical—an elegant excavation of the human spirit.”
—Dani Shapiro
“Matrimony gets it just right, combining well-written prose and colorful characters that are so relatable you feel as if you are a part of their world…. Throughout this entertaining page-turner, Henkin does an impressive job of accurately portraying the complexities of modern relationships.”
—Ladies’ Home Journal
“Henkin movingly explores marriage, friendship, and the many ways we love and hurt each other…. Poignant…. Readers who loved Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety will find echoes [in Matrimony].”
—Bookreporter
“Audacious…. An enchanting book.”
—The Jewish Daily Forward
“With vibrant intelligence, Matrimony looks at the mystery of how a couple stays together and the ways even the most privileged among us are subject to the disasters wrought by our incalculable natures. A luminous tale, eloquently told.”
—Joan Silber, author of Ideas of Heaven
“An intimate epic…. Henkin is a master of scene-making…. [Hehas] a knack for isolating the fine, vivid detail.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The rich rewards of dailiness, the complexity of ordinary human connection, the unexpected ways that love endures, and the frequently hilarious ironies of modern life are on full display in this warm-hearted, clear-eyed novel. Henkin’s portrait of a marriage is a portrait of us all.”
—Stacey D’Erasmo, author of Tea
“Like in his first novel, Swimming Across the Hudson, Matrimony reveals a gentle writing style, a tangled web of human relationships, a sensitive exploration of family relationships and a poignant authenticity.”
—The Jerusalem Post
“Henkin is able to explore in depth a surprisingly wide array of issues universal to the experiences of marriage…. It is a testament to Matrimony’s redemptive power that at the end of the novel, despite all the difficulties the characters face, the reader might still want to get, or stay, married.”
—Small Spiral Notebook
“Deliciously old-fashioned…. With no gimmicks, no tricks, Henkin gives us a cast of complex, flawed, utterly real characters, exploring their inner lives with an astonishing sureness of touch. Beautifully written and deeply felt, Matrimony is a miracle of intelligence and heart.”
—Brian Morton, author of Starting Out in the Evening
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, AUGUST 2008
Copyright © 2007 by Joshua Henkin
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2007.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks and Vintage Contemporaries is a trademark of Rand
om House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Pantheon edition as follows:
Henkin, Joshua.
Matrimony: a novel / Joshua Henkin.
p. cm.
1. Marriage—Fiction. 2. Man-woman relationships—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.E49594M38 2007
813'.54—dc22
2006103202
eISBN: 978-0-307-47267-0
www.vintagebooks.com
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