I listened to an interview with an artist last week who said that the best, most interesting art is art that surprises him. I don’t know enough about art to know if that’s true, but I do know that a book that surprises me is one of my favorite things. This one did.
Standard Deviation
can be read as a funny, absorbing story of marriage, advancing years, raising a
special needs child, and managing relationships with relatives, exes,
and house guests. Graham is approaching sixty, and his second wife is a
younger woman named Audra who has no filter— which is sometimes
hilarious and sometimes appalling. Their son Matthew is an endearing
Aspy kid with a passion for origami. That version of the story is enough
on its own to be funny, heartwarming, and even sometimes wise. I was startled into laughter more times while reading this book than any book in recent memory.
But it seems to me there are other layers, and I’m making my spouse read it now so I can have someone to talk to about this. Am I making it up? Did she really intend to get into the moral ambiguity of the second half of the novel, or am I over-reading?
(If that sounds intriguing, stop now and go read it, especially if you live nearby and we can go for coffee (tea), because I really would love to discuss this, and you should go into it without knowing the stuff I'm talking about below.)
***spoilers ahead***
I think the way you read
the second half depends mostly on whether or not you think Audra is
having an affair. I think she is— maybe not with the mysterious Jasper,
but what else was she doing in that hotel? She certainly has no problem talking about the multiple married men she slept with before she married Graham. And then you find out that
Graham cheated on his first wife not just with Audra, but with Marla,
and then later he mentions “all the other Marlas” and you start
to wonder if these people are really at all what you thought.
There are a whole lot of layers of truth and falsehood —
from the amusing social lies/fabrications that Audra spins effortlessly
to the lies of omission from Graham. Is Heiny’s point that speaking
truth doesn’t really matter? I've told plenty of social "white lies" myself, usually in the name of not hurting someone's feelings, but I'll say it plainly: the deeper lack of honesty bothers me.
But
even I can see that I’m being a bit of a killjoy and a preachy bore to
suggest that the fun and hilarity of reading about life with Audra has darker
underpinnings. What's the problem with serial adultery if it's so much fun to read about? Graham seems to consciously decide that he doesn’t care
if Audra is unfaithful—which is totally his choice—but that’s not the
same thing as Heiny as an author giving the impression that telling the truth to your partner doesn’t matter. Is it really true that as long as everything looks good, it is good? As long as we're having so much funnnnn, as the kids say on snapchat, does that automatically mean anything goes?
Or did Heiny actively intend all the intricate, ambiguous implications? Is her point that we lull ourselves into complicity because we want to be in on the joke? Maybe Standard Deviation is a fun-hall mirror of seeing our own distortions.
Or maybe I'm over-reading again. Read it for yourself and see what you think.
(a slightly modified version of the review I posted on Goodreads)
