Shiloh

I have to admit, I really did not find too much here to keep my interest. Possibly the whole “woman seeks to re-invent herself” theme has been so over-done in the last thirty years that I don’t appreciate those who initially did it so well. I appreciated the down-home feel and the wonderful nods to popular culture, many of which probably have gone by unappreciated by younger readers. "Dr. Strangelove" and "Lover Come Back" are two great movies. My aunt had that same gosh-awful fake wood organ. Mushroom soup casseroles. Log home kits. Civil War battleground. It is all familiar, and that does help it feel realistic, but I just don’t care about them. Mabel, the overbearing mother-in-law, is a trouble-maker who inspects her daughter’s closets. How crazy is that? The book said her husband died of a bleeding ulcer- coincidence? I think not. Leroy is so mixed up from not driving his truck anymore, that he spends his time doing crafts and smoking dope. I can’t see this ending well. Norma Jean has lived her life a certain way for so long, she couldn’t handle the change. She wanted something new, she wanted to change her life. We are left to believe that when she married, she had little choice, because she was pregnant- her mother made her get married. But now that she is older, her husband is underfoot all the time, she realizes that they really don’t have that much in common. She is ready to start her life over. While Leroy was concentrating on an “empty house”, she was “flexing her muscles” of independence. It is ironic that their marriage is ending on same battleground where so many died.