The Little Thaw
The narrative opens with the narrator describing how his relationship with his girlfriend had hit a pretty good place. They have gotten over a big chill and were really settling down into the sort of routine that marks a strong relationship because it doesn’t feel like a rut. The problem, of course, is that back there during the dark times the narrator did a really stupid thing. But before routine bites hard and ambitions go low, the routine is good because the girlfriend still doesn’t know:
“The freeze was over. She was coming over to my place and instead of us hanging with my knucklehead boys—me smoking, her bored out of her skull—we were seeing movies. Driving out to different places to eat. Even caught a play at the Crossroads and I took her picture with some bigwig black playwrights…We were a couple again. Visiting each other’s family on weekends. Eating breakfast at diners hours before anybody else was up, rummaging through New Brunswick library together, the one Carnegie built with his guilt money.”
This Is How Not to Keep Her
The intensely self-involved narrator keeps informing the reader about not just the ways in which a guy loses a girl after cheating on her, but other things as well. For instance, how to try to keep from losing her and fail. It’s a pageant:
“You try every trick in the book to keep her. You write her letters. You drive her to work. You quote Neruda. You compose a mass e-mail disowning all your sucias. You block their e-mails. You change your phone number. You stop drinking. You stop smoking. You claim you're a sex addict and start attending meetings. You blame your father. You blame your mother. You blame the patriarchy. You blame Santo Domingo. You find a therapist. You cancel your Facebook. You give her the passwords to all your e-mail accounts. You start taking salsa classes like you always swore you would so that the two of you could dance together.”
Samantha
A hefty load of imagery in the book is directed toward character description. A lot of characters come and go, swiftly sweeping into the life of the narrator and then just as rapidly being swept away. The imagery used to describe a girl named Samantha is particularly vivid:
“The newest girl’s called Samantha and she’s a problem. She’s dark and heavy-browed and has a mouth like unswept glass—when you least expect it she cuts you. Walked onto the job after one of the other girls ran off to Delaware. She’s been in the States only six weeks and can't believe the cold. Twice she’s tipped over the detergent barrels and she has a bad habit of working without gloves and then rubbing her eyes.”
The Private Journal No More
Lesson to all lovers who feel the need to confess their sins in a private journal. No matter how much you might trust someone not to read it, if given half a chance it will be read. So either don’t keep a journal at all or don’t put anything in it you wouldn’t want someone else to read. Passwords? Silly rabbit, passwords only intensity the desire to make a private journal not private anymore.
“She waits for you on the stoop, and when you pull up in her Saturn and notice the journal in her hand your heart plunges through you like a fat bandit through a hangman’s trap. You take your time turning off the car. You are overwhelmed by a pelagic sadness. Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertible knowledge that she will never forgive you.”
