Two young mothers meet in the hospital and a collision course is set.
Their friendship is pure, uncomplicated; in the swirling chaos of motherhood, it offers them each an anchor. Jackie Stinson’s family even moves in next door to Theresa Linden’s. But there is a darkness in Jackie; overwhelmed by the constant needs of her four sons and her car-salesman husband, her secret solace becomes eating. It’s Theresa who suggests they join a weight-loss group, and soon the measuring of calories, of meals, of single bites replaces Jackie’s previous addiction to food. People begin to notice her, especially men, and this newfound power leads Jackie to make a choice that destroys a friendship, leads to a brutal murder, and tragically alters forever the lives of her sons and Theresa’s daughter as they struggle into adulthood themselves. While Jackie is the only narrator who speaks in the first person, there are chapters from almost every character’s point of view, and the novel spans several decades. The murder is revealed almost at once, the identity of the killer much later, but this isn’t really a crime novel. It’s a novel about a woman who doesn’t know who she is and how her emptiness devastates not only her own life, but the lives of all those she loves. It’s about how her love is complicated because there is, at the heart of it, a fist of resentment, and how this love becomes a trap. Hunter’s lyrical writing performs the miracles here; while Jackie herself is hard to sympathize with, Hunter captures her complex humanity in stirring and gorgeous prose: “There once was a woman named Jackie, and sometimes she let life happen to her, and sometimes she didn’t. At the end she stood around and thought, What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?”
Tragic to the core—and yet, there is beauty in the telling.