In an original collaboration two award-winning authors, Carol Shields and Blanche Howard, have written an immensely enjoyable novel which give us both sides of a story about the breakdown of traditional roles, rules and communication in a marriage.
A CELIBATE SEASON is the story of a married couple, Jocelyn and Charles, (Jock and Chas) and their self-imposed separation of ten months when Jock accepts a job in a city more than three thousand miles away from her family. As "breadwinner" and suddenly "single" again Jock is confronted with local politics, loneliness and advances from the opposite sex. Meanwhile back at home, Chas, an unemployed architect, is now a "single parent" who has to reacquaint himself with his teenage children, Mia and Greg, learn to run a household and shift his career priorities. Throw in an attractive young housekeeper, a mother-in-law who enjoys her wine, a touch of teenage angst, some unexpected home renovations and a disastrous Christmas dinner and you have modern family life.
Industry Reviews
This is a tale of a happily married couple who are forced to live separately when the wife takes a job thousands of miles away from home. The story is told through the couple's letter - a device which cleverly illustrates the growing emotional, as well as geographical, distance between them. Shields, whose previous novels demonstrate how well she handles domestic themes, wrote the letters of Chas, the husband left behind suddenly in charge of running a household, while Howard wrote the letters of Jock, his wife who finds herself in the public arena as a legal adviser to a Government Committee. Such a role-reversal enables the authors to examine the wider issues of gender stereotypes and expectations alongside the personal concerns of Jock and Chas, as they both develop previously unsuspected skills. The novel gives a fascinating portrayal of both sides of a relationship undergoing a communication breakdown, in which the couple realize that they cannot share assumptions about their future but who are willing to make a frank evaluation of themselves. The writing is skillful enough to discuss a range of thought-provoking subjects, from the politics of poverty to the poetry of the primordial soul, but told in the everyday language of an ordinary couple. (Kirkus UK)
