The Love of My Youth
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This work is a novel about first lovers meeting again after more than thirty years, walking the streets of Rome and reimmersing themselves in their lost past. Miranda and Adam, high school sweethearts now in their late fifties, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, where they once spent a summer
… More »This work is a novel about first lovers meeting again after more than thirty years, walking the streets of Rome and reimmersing themselves in their lost past. Miranda and Adam, high school sweethearts now in their late fifties, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, where they once spent a summer deeply in love, blissfully living together. At an awkward reunion, the two, who parted in an atmosphere of passionate betrayal in the 1960s and haven't seen each other since, are surprised to discover that they may still have something to talk about; they decide that, for these few weeks, they will take daily walks together. As they experience Rome, the pleasures of eye and palate, and the daily drama of the streets, they review their lives (married to others, and with grown children) and gradually explore not just what matters to them now, but what happened to them long ago. Miranda and Adam are masterfully portrayed characters, intent on understanding who they are in relation to who they were. Theirs is a rich and wise story of forgiveness and reckoning.
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Add a CommentI have always enjoyed Mary Gordon's stuff... and am glad to say this novel continues the streak. A simple, yet intriguing plot -- Miranda & Adam (once young sweethearts in Rome) meet up again in the Italian capital & tour the sites together. Gordon draws full, believable & lovely characters, and weaves a beautiful story around the difference between young & mature love. "Love of my youth" is not for the impatient, solely plot driven reader, but for those willing to enjoy the magic between people and their almost lyrical location.
"The Love of My Youth has all the undeniable appeal — and the contrivance — of that perennial PBS Brit com As Time Goes By (a show whose premise also is hard to imagine in the Internet age). But, much more is at stake in Gordon's novel than the "will they or won't they" suspense of a possible holiday hookup. Gordon's characters explore the hard costs of changing, maturing. They share the dazed epiphany of late middle age — namely, that it takes so long to grow up, and then you die. Readers may well feel that same shock at the end of The Love of My Youth: It takes awhile to settle into Gordon's world here, and then it's all over much too quickly."