If You Knew Me: A Novel
Impatient with her work, biologist Leah restores herself at her beach house, where she enters into a bizarre triangle with Ollie, a high-school teacher, and his sister, Sally
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Anne Roiphe's wonderful new novel discovers love in the corners of a strange triangle. Leah, a biologist, no longer in her thirties, is suddenly impatient with her work. She has come to spend the winter at her beach house. Ollie, slightly older, a high school English teacher, is bound to their seaside town. Keeping him there is his responsibility for his sister, Sally - a child-woman, not entirely right for whom he must care.The three meet on the beach one fall afternoon when Sally runs into the surf and together Leah and Ollie rescue her. As they get to know each other, Leah finds her cool, scientific veneer eroding and Ollie learns that his love for Leah is loosening the bonds of loyalty to his sister. While the story unfolds, Anne Roiphe brings her characters vividly to life: Ollie trying to teach the local teenagers Moby Dick and The Scarlet Letter; Leah talking to her New York friend whose son's pet boa constrictor is dying; Andre, the psychiatrist, imagining man-devouring whales rising from the sea; the folks at the senior citizen center helping Sally play bingo. Inevitably a crisis comes, and in it the three redeem their lives.Capturing the tenderness, joy, and complexity of love and guilt, Anne Roiphe touches us anew with an unusual and moving love story. Powerful, vivid, often funny. If You Knew Me speaks eloquently of hope and understanding, warmth and delayed passion.
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