Standard Deviation

I so-enjoyed The Portable Veblen earlier this year. I thought I would never find a similar book. Yet unexpectedly a fellow blogger led me to this book from the backlist of Katherine Heiny. I couldn't be more delighted.

Graham reflects upon his second wife, Audra, and contrasts her with his first wife, Elspeth. Which was the better choice? he wonders. No-filter Audra, who never stops talking, who befriends and brings home every stray person who enters her life? Or solitary, chilly Elspeth, still alone many years after their divorce? Audra is not an easy person to be married to, especially for quiet Graham.

Graham also contemplates Matthew, his son, with Asperger's and all its accompanying quirks, as Matthew finds friendship for the first time when he joins the Origami Club.

Humor. Wry philosophy. A small gem of a book.

I get it. You want characters in your novel. They don't have to be likeable, they can push the boundaries of believable but they have to do the work of carrying your story.

Graham Cavanaugh is a 56 year old venture capitalist 12 years into his second marriage with Audra Daltry. She's the significantly younger, one-time mistress that broke up his first marriage to the icy Elspeth.

Between trying to manage their on-the-spectrum son Matthew and his newfound passion for origami to Audra's oversharing, open armed tendencies that sees them housing all manner of human strays to attempting to foster a friendship with his ex-wife this is one of those light, frothy “white people problems in the big city” type of reads that evokes words like charming, breezy and hilarious.

Not to say it wasn't all those things but I found Graham's typical hand-wringing, greying urbanite's concerns elicited no sympathy. Audra was too guileless and garrulous to be anything but a hilarious caricature and Elspeth was given the dirty work of being the sacrificial straight-man to this meandering story that shied away from exploring too deeply into any dark, troubling territory. I wish it had gone there.