| The fictional territory staked out by Alice Adams in The Last Lovely City is populated by characters with names like Carter and Chase and Zoë and Slater. They often live in the Berkeley hills and have professions like concert pianist, architect, psychiatrist, cellist; even their pets are upper-crust, sporting monikers such as Molly Bloom and Parsley. And yet, for all their wealth and brilliance, Adams's characters are unhappy people. Infidelity, divorce, and a steady, low-grade depression run through these stories; relationships are complicated and often destructive. In 'His Women,' Carter must choose between his lover, Chase, and his estranged wife, Meredith, all the while haunted by memories of his first alcohol-fueled marriage to Isabel. The four related stories at the end of the collection chronicle the disintegration of two marriages in the wake of much heavy drinking, emotional instability, and, of course, the requisite affairs. Not every tale ends in misery, however. 'A Very Nice Dog' traces the beginning of a relationship, not the end. In 'The Islands,' a widow becomes involved with a man who is very different from her late husband. 'I thought that Slater's very differences from Andrew should be a good sign. You're supposed to look for opposites, not reproductions, I read somewhere.' The death of a beloved cat, however, makes her rethink her motives: 'Whyever should I seek out the opposite of a person I truly loved?' Lost love is an overarching theme in The Last Lovely City, but this somber subject matter is leavened by Adams's ironical voice and her deceptively simple prose. --Alix Wilber |
