Sex is notoriously difficult to write. Some authors avoid it entirely; even those who have been called great can come a cropper. Which is why I want to start this review by saying that the sex scenes in Ordinary Love are some of the best I have read this year, and that Marie Rutkoski has a facility for writing physical intimacy that can elude even some of our most gifted authors. Her voice has been compared to that of Sally Rooney. I don’t see much of that in this novel beyond a Rooneyesque ability to write sex well, but that is a talent worth noting.
Ordinary Love is a queer romance that tells the story of Emily and Gen, teenage sweethearts who break up in college and reunite in their 30s, their paths having diverged dramatically. Emily marries Jack, who is wealthy and emotionally abusive. When she sees Gen again, she is in the process of leaving him for the second time (the novel opens with a scene vividly depicting the dealbreaker: it is violence against a child that finally does it). Gen, meanwhile, has become an Olympic athlete and serial womaniser. Both are carrying the wounds of their adolescent relationship, which is recounted in flashback, and the homophobia they faced, particularly from Emily’s father. In one particularly moving scene, Gen’s grandmother – who raised her after her mother died from opioid addiction – counters his bigotry by making a toast: “To my granddaughter. I love you. I love everything about you. I am so proud.”
It is in her exploration of the intricacies of family, as well as romantic relationships, that Rutkoski is at her most impressive. Parenthood and childhood are explored, but so are kinship care and the notion of surrogate family – Gen’s grandmother offers kindness to Emily where her own parents have fallen short. The relationship between Emily and her emotionally distant mother is particularly well rendered. As for Emily and Jack’s marriage, we soon realise that Emily is in the grip of coercive control. This is done subtly; what Rutkoski doesn’t say is as important as what she does. With great economy she conveys how Emily tiptoes around the threat of Jack’s displeasure, as well as his facility for manipulation as a way of wielding power (when she feeds the baby formula, his response, before he hits her with a verbal sledgehammer, is “bewildered, disappointed, yet with the expression of someone trying to be gentle”).
I have heard it remarked of American fiction that too often the protagonists don’t seem to have any friends. This is not the case here: Ordinary Love is replete with friends, and some of the best writing comes in the novel’s exploration of how they try to save Emily from Jack, only for him to isolate her almost completely. Emily’s regret, and her attempts to repair these friendships, are so richly written that they almost overshadow the central romance between Emily and Gen, which despite the various stumbling blocks to happiness is somehow more straightforward, and less nuanced, than these female friendships. Perhaps it is because we see little of Gen’s interior life in comparison with Emily’s, although it should be noted that we do get to meet her friends, too.
Ordinary Love never sags. Rutkoski has written a page-turner, and her prose is generally good. However, every few pages there is a turn of phrase or a metaphor that makes my teeth itch. The first I highlighted was “snow scalloped into drifts like thoughts that start small and then amount to something”. That’s not too bad, you might think, but then we have “[it] felt like the architectural expression of PTSD, where things vanished like bad memories”, and (the unintentionally comical) “She made Emily feel like an egg without its shell”, and “Gen felt distant now, like a half-finished daydream, as did Emily’s youth”. Perhaps most egregious of all: “Emily wanted Gen so badly it was like how people want what they can never have.”
How much you enjoy this book will depend on your tolerance for this sort of thing. Mine is generally low, but I pressed on. The plot zipped along and the clumsy metaphors seemed to drop off by the second half, I suspect owing to an editor’s guillotine. To quote the text: “The past was done, over; it isn’t a novel you can revise until you get it right.” One more round of revision in this case would have been no bad thing. Saying that, Ordinary Love is still superior to the vast majority of books in a similar vein, and it has much to recommend it – not least the fact that the sex is very good indeed.
Ordinary Love by Marie Rutkoski is published by Virago (£16.99). To support the Guardian order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.