Final thoughts on Damage

I hate motherfuckers in committed relationships who can't keep their shit in their pants. I suppose this story was satisfying to have the destructiveness of cheating rendered in such a literal fashion. But then again, only the narrator suffers. Anna goes on to return to Peter, her on and off fuck buddy to whom she lost her virginity and who is also a cheater and gets pregnant. Boo. Predatory hoes should come to bad ends in fiction always but  I admire Josephine Hart for having the chutzpah to go the other way.

This book was well-written and its tragic mood seems to be staying with me (or maybe it's the rain that is so gloom-inducing.) I really liked the final series of confrontations between the narrator and his wife, Ingrid, after everything has come to light and Martyn has plunged to his death. Here are her final words to the narrator, "Goodbye. I don't mean this to sound cruel, but what a pity you didn't die, in some accident or something, last year." Well, yes it sounds so much less cruel when you preface it like that. Nice touch.

On to first and last.

First:

There is an internal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives. 

Those who are lucky enough to find it ease like water over a stone, onto its fluid contours and are at home.

Last:

For those of you who doubt it, this is a love story.

It is over.

Others may be luckier.

I wish them well.