Diana Page Jordan | Book Reviews and Inspiration

The Atlas of Love

By Laurie Frankel

Published August 17, 2010 (Hardcover) St. Martin’s Press

Maybe I loved The Atlas of Love because it felt like a friend’s journal I’d picked up and accidentally opened to the first page.  And couldn’t stop reading it until page 35 or so, still standing, and then it was too late.  So I read the whole thing, feeling guilty, as if I’d eaten a carton of Ben and Jerry’s at one sitting.  Not that I’ve ever done that.  But I also felt pleased, because of the light humor laced in with the literary configurations.

Maybe I loved The Atlas of Love because I’m in what the Oregonian newspaper this June called “The Hottest Writing Group in Portland,” and I stuff myself with every literary phrase I hear, as if I’m getting an honorary MFA, just by hanging around. Or, in this case, just by reading the novel.

And, maybe I loved The Atlas of Love, because it keyed into how I lived most of my life, juggling one full time job, three freelance gigs, bringing up two sons and their dad – who was either selling cars or lying in bed or gambling online – and I was up 20-hours a day.  Seriously.  For nearly twenty-years.

Then, again, maybe I loved The Atlas of Love, because my sons are grown up and I’m divorced, and my latest roommate just moved to Seattle.  And, except for my cats, I live alone.  Hey, I’m looking for another roommate – if you hear of anyone…!  And Laurie Frankel writes a lovely story of three women friends who are graduate students all enrolled in an English Lit master’s program at a university in the northwest.  And then one of them complicates the story by accidentally (?) getting pregnant, and while the guy disappears, all manner of family show up to “mother” the baby.

At a deeper level, the novel explores how love for friends conquers antagonistic religious beliefs.  One of the women is Mormon and dead-set against premarital sex.  And one – the narrator – Janey – takes on the load of mothering everyone, or at least trying to organize their life, feeling resentful of it.  And the third, the mother, feels overwhelmed and withdraws.  Add in their gay guy friends, who decide the Mormon woman would be the perfect one to ask to have their child, since she was “cold” enough that she could hand over the baby once it was born.

I miss family.  I miss not having best friends close by, and having to wait for weeks or return phone calls or the time.  But, The Atlas of Love is company enough for now.  It is playful, and literary, and lovely.

I’m sorry I ate that half-cup of Ben and Jerry’s.  And, let me know if you are looking for a roommate – I’m waiting for you!