The Marriage Plot

The Marriage Plot: A Novel
by Jeffrey Eugenides
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 11, 2011), 417 pages
Kindle edition $9.99, Amazon paperback $10.62

I am a sucker for college novels, and I loved this one.

The story takes place in the 1980’s, and for the most part is set on the East Coast. The three main characters are students at Brown University. Madeleine is an English major. Mitchell is a religious studies student. Leonard studies philosophy. Mitchell is the good guy who goes on a Razor’s Edge sort of quest after graduation. Leonard is the bad boy, neurotic or perhaps psychotic, and is medicated with Lithium by his doctors.

The novel opens with Madeleine’s father logically laying out the options for him and Madeleine’s mother to attend her graduation ceremony. Close to the end he logically presents presents Madeleine with her options regarding her apparently failed marriage to Leonard. In between the author writes in the third person but gives us the perspectives of each of the three main characters. He jumps backward and forward in time, but in a manner that is engaging and not distracting.

The ending is not a “happily ever after” one but one which makes perfect sense in the context of the novel.

A good read to be sure.