The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is one of those writers for whose books I wait impatiently. And unlike lesser writers, of course, he can’t churn them out every year. I gulped down this book, which is about college graduates and their coming of age and their love lives in the 1980s. Eugenides reminds me a little of Jonathan Franzen in the way he can manipulate language and in the intricacy of his character portrayal. In this story Madeleine is in love with Leonard, who has manic depression, and Mitchell, who has divinity leanings, is in love with her. She’s a literary major, a princess of course, and the book charts their relationships with great skill. It’s not a Pulitzer Prize winner like Middlesex, but closer to a longer (though probably not as wonderful) version of The Virgin Suicides.