Ponder Post: Truly Madly Guilty

I began to read Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty on my eastbound trip to Montreal. I was a captive audience in the plane but I would have been hooked on this story wherever I was reading it. Flying east my body clock remained on west coast time so I had no problem whatsoever staying up late the next two nights to finish this one off. I had to pay for my late hours the next couple mornings but it was worth it.

Truly Madly Guilty is the story of relationships among three neighboring families: Clementine and Sam with two toddler age daughters Ruby and Holly; Tiffany and Vid with interesting livelihoods and school age daughter Dakota; Erika and Oliver, childless but with challenging parents. As usual Liane Moriarty molds multi-faceted characters that draw you in. Initially undisclosed events occurring during a seemingly innocuous neighborhood barbecue provides an ever-present air of mystery hovering over the interactions among these characters.

The book has a flashback style of timeline. Ordinary numbered chronological chapters are interspersed with chapters simply subtitled "The Day of the Barbecue" in which hour by hour, bits of that pivotal day are revealed. The day of the barbecue dominates the evolving inter-relationships of these three couples with each other and with his/her own respective spouse. The novel is a page turner as the reader wonders what on earth could have happened that day that had such a profound impact. A quote from the front flap of this book hints at its tantalizing contents far better than I can:

• In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don't say can be more powerful than what we do, and how often we don't appreciate how extraordinary our ordinary lives are until it's too late.

This is the fifth book I've read by Liane Moriarty. I read Three Wishes (2005) this year, and The Hypnotist's Love Story (2013) last year, both of which were disappointing and I gave them one and two stars respectively. I loved What Alice Forgot (2012) and The Husband's Secret (2015) when I read them last year, giving them four and five stars respectively. I whole heartedly give Truly Madly Guilty (2016) five stars and would recommend it as a suspenseful, thought-provoking, engaging read. Although I either love 'em or hate 'em, I will continue to read works by author Liane Moriarty.

It Shoulda Been You & ReTooled

Even though I was a bit frazzled about getting ready for our upcoming trip to Montreal Canada on Saturday, October 8th, Frank and I went to a delightful musical comedy the previous Thursday night, October 6th. The show was titled It Shoulda Been You and we thoroughly, thoroughly, enjoyed it. It is the tale of the wedding of a young Jewish bride to a not-so-Jewish groom. The majority of the occasion was planned and managed by the bride's older – and as yet unmarried (gasp!) – sister. 

The stressors of the wedding and well-meaning interferences by both sets of parents were hilarious and gave me a huge break from my typical pre-travel stresses. I had never heard of the Broadway show before but I highly recommend you see it if it comes into your area. There are delightful plot twists that surprised us in the show so do not be too thorough in researching the show first in Wikipedia. The synopsis there contains several spoilers.

It Shoulda Been You was performed at a theatre in downtown Walnut Creek, a town about 26 miles northwest of us. Lesher Center for the Arts is a multistory structure that houses four theatres within. It is quite striking from the outdoors at night. Here is Frank paused before we enter for our show.

It Shoulda Been You was held in the rather intimate, 297-seat Margaret Lesher Theatre. Before we spiraled up on the wide elegant staircase to the theatre on the third floor, we browsed through an art exhibit on the first lobby floor. Attendees to the shows have free entry to the rotating art exhibits featured in The Bedford Gallery. 

The exhibit when we were there was ReTooled: Highlights from the Hechinger Collection. Frank fondly remembers the Hechinger hardware stores from his childhood days growing up in the area and wondered if the names were related.

We learned that the John Hechinger from this exhibit had indeed been the owner of the mid-Atlantic hardware store chain popular in the 1980s-90s. Hechinger's hometown was Washington, D.C. so he and Frank were fellow native Washintonians. It is indeed a small world that we should have stumbled upon this exhibit out here in California. Hechinger's biography states that "Hechinger is often credited as one of the major figures in the transformation of the neighborhood hardware store to the"do it yourself" home improvement business."

Hechinger was also a proponent of "engaging art experiences for people of all backgrounds". Here are some of items from his collection that caught my eye and amused me." This next sculpture is by H.C Westermann and is titled The Slob. It anecdotally represents sloppy workmanship.

This next hammer represents a useless tool. I cannot imagine that pounding that glass nail with that crystalline hammer would be very productive. It is "striking" to look at though.

I have heard of "killing two birds with one stone" but hitting two nails with one hammer...?

If only this were a successful, easy way to apply wallpaper.

Then if we switch to outdoor décor, there was this triangular chair to rest in. The seat is artificial turf.

The last area held a collection of painted saws.

We enjoyed our outing, both the surprising, laughable musical entertainment and the accompanying serendipitous art exhibit.