Augusta "Gus" Edelman, the 47-year-old narrator of Robin Black's quietly thoughtful first novel, is a modestly successful artist and teacher. Her husband, Owen, has published a few well-received but sparsely read small-press books. They are mostly content in their shared life, until Gus has a brief, intense affair with the father of one of her students. Life Drawing is Gus's story--not only of her marriage and regrettable infidelity, but also of the untimely death of her young mother when Gus was a toddler, the loss to cancer of her oldest sister and the increasing dementia of her father. The creative impulse of her art sustains her, even when "what seemed unimaginably exhilarating gets bogged down... and then it is work. Then it is hard."
After he learns of Gus's affair, Owen is willing to hang on. They use a small inheritance to leave the city and purchase a farmhouse, isolated enough from former distractions that they can attempt to repair their marriage. But when an attractive divorced 50-year-old woman rents the farm next door, her unexpected intrusion disrupts their solitary rural retreat and tragically shakes the fragile balance of Gus and Owen's marriage.
Black (If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This) probes the vicissitudes of a mature marriage with an understanding of the effort it takes to make one work, aptly capturing its uneasy heart: "We are a universe. You and me. Our own f**ked up, beautiful, inexplicable universe." That may not be much, but in a world of irrevocably broken marriages, it may just be enough. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.