Wild Game

Author: Adrienne Brodeur
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: HMH Books, 2019
Pages: 256
Rating: Recommend

Synopsis: On a hot July night on Cape Cod when Adrienne was fourteen, her mother, Malabar, work her at midnight with five simple words what would set the course of both their lives for years to come: Ben Souther just kissed me.

Adrienne instantly became her mother's confidante and helpmate, blossoming in the sudden light of her attention, and from then on, Malabar came to rely on her daughter to help orchestrate what would become an epic affair with her husband's closest friend. The affair would have calamitous consequences for everyone involved, impacting Adrienne's life in profound ways, driving her into a precarious marriage of her own, and then into a deep depression. Only years later will she find the strength to embrace her life - and her mother - on her own terms.

Wild Game is a brilliant, timeless memoir about how the people close to us can break our hearts simply because they have access to them, and the lies we tell in order to justify the choices we make. It's a remarkable story of resilience, a reminder that we need not be the parents our parents were to us.

Review: At only 256 pages, this should have been a fast read, but between reading a 5 star historical fiction novel prior to this, and maybe not being totally in the mood for a memoir, my progress was slow. 

I enjoyed this novel, it's crazy to read the lives some people are born into and endure, but I never got sucked into this and turning pages so fast it was over before I realized what happened. The author failed in conveying just how consumed she was in her mother's affair. I didn't get the sense that it was the focal point of her own existence, until she would say exactly that. Something was just "off" in the telling of this story. It was also a bit disjointed from time-to-time, but it is worth reading.