A recent visit to the town where I grew up has me reflecting that life is long and no matter how much we change (or think we’re changing), there are people who will always see us as we were, just as there are elements of ourselves that we carry forward without always thinking about it. A Moment’s Surrender by John Burt, a novel about friendship and grief, met me in that place.
The book begins a few days after (Tom) Corbin has left the home of his college friend (Paul) Bishop. Bishop is talking to the police because Corbin never made it home and Bishop is trying not to tell the police that Corbin was planning to leave his wife, Susan, for Bishop’s college girlfriend, Rachel. It quickly follows that Corbin was killed by someone he met on the road, and the rest of the book alternates between stories from the college days when Corbin, Bishop, and Rachel were closely knotted together and the present where Bishop is trying to console and protect Susan.
The relationships are complicated and Burt elucidates the characters’ motivations with careful insights like this:
That’s the funny thing about doing something really stupid. Everybody keeps telling you how stupid the thing you’re doing is. But you knew that from the beginning so that advice doesn’t help you at all because it doesn’t stop you from wanting it. – John Burt, A Moment’s Surrender
He pays special attention to Jack, Susan and Corbin’s son, and effectively conveys the unique perspective with which a child sees the world:
“[S]he really is trying to protect you.”
Jack wasn’t quite ready to concede this. He took his thumb from his mouth, and knotted his fingers together, as if to keep from sucking his thumb again.
“And I know you’re trying to protect her too,” Paul added. – John Burt, A Moment’s Surrender
The intuitive portrayals of characters falls short, however, when it comes to Rachel and Susan. One carries a twisted darkness that seems thin, despite her backstory, and the other is surrounded by an angelic aura that would be impossible for anyone to live up to. That isn’t to say that Burt does not spend time with these characters and their interiority or that Bishop never sees Susan or Rachel. We get some fine moments of observation like, “She loves him, and she’s happy. He had to take another look. No. She’s hoping to be happy.” But the female characters seem stuck inside virgin/whore tropes, and I had come to care enough about both women to want more for them.
This is a reader’s novel, by which I mean there’s a literary fluency and a level of intertextual referencing (especially poetry) that provides an extra layer of satisfaction for the very well read. Of course, you might expect this from a professor of literature such as Burt. It also means that a good share of the book takes place in and around academic discussions of literature and writing. This pleased me, of course, and gave me something to stretch towards (as my own poetic education is ever developing).
If you’re looking for a story about grief, long-term friendship, and how we deal with betrayals enacted and received, A Moment’s Surrender will take you deeply and engagingly into the humanity of it all. If you pick up your copy from Bookshop.org, I will receive a commission.
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