Matrimony, the second novel by writer Joshua Henkin, opens with Julian Wainwright, a rich kid who wants to be a writer, as he enter his his freshman year at Graymont College in Northington, Massachusetts (a thinly disguised Amherst, as far as I can tell) to study under the charismatic Professor Chesterfield, a man who will turn out to be a better teacher than writer, but a man who will have a profound effect on Julian’s life. Also to have a huge impact on Julian for the 15 years in which the novel takes place is Carter, another young man in the writing class, and Mia, the woman he meets cute in a laundromat.
The novel carries Julian, Mia, and Carter from the politically calm years of the Reagan era through post 9-11 New York City as they grow smarter, wiser, older, and slightly more cynical, and finally settle into a sort of adulthood as they approach middle age.
Along the way, Julian must confront his talent and its limitations, Carter must wrestle with the implications of both class and money, and Mia must decide how much of an influence faith and heredity will play on both her past and her future. And each of the three will deal with guilt and all its ugly ramifications.
In a way, a novel like this should not work. Its themes: a writer trying to write a novel, three kids at a tony university, teenaged love, the lives of the intelligent and privileged: they are all clichés of a sort. But what makes this book stand out from the pack are the writing and the characters. Henkin is a master stylist. His prose is so beautiful, so full of ease and grace as to appear effortless, each sentence lovingly crafted.
Matrimony is full of rich, almost inside, humor, especially in the writing class where Carter and Julian first meet: from the application process where Professor Chesterfield asks each student to answer the question: “’Do you now, or do you ever intend to, write material geared for the U.S. motion picture industry located in Hollywood, California?,” to the list of rules printed on the blackboard which include “THOU SHALT NOT USE THE WORD ‘KERPLUNK’ IN YOUR SHORT STORIES" and “THOU SHALT NOT UTTER THE PHRASE ‘SHOW, DON’T TELL’ WHEN DISCUSSING ANOTHER’S SHORT STORIES,” Henkin shows a rich sense of irony about the writing process itself. And his characters, realistically and superbly drawn, are full of the kind of flaws and foibles that makes us like them all the more.
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