REVIEW: A SEPARATION, BY KATIE KITAMURA

This is her story. About the end of her marriage. About what happened when Christopher went missing and she went to find him. These are her secrets, this is what happened…

A young woman has agreed with her faithless husband: it’s time for them to separate. For the moment it’s a private matter, a secret between the two of them. As she begins her new life, she gets word that Christopher has gone missing in a remote region in the rugged south of Greece; she reluctantly agrees to go look for him, still keeping their split to herself. In her heart, she’s not even sure if she wants to find him. As her search comes to a shocking breaking point, she discovers she understands less than she thought she did about her relationship and the man she used to love.

MY THOUGHTS:  In the mind of the unnamed woman who goes to Greece to search for her husband are the conflicting thoughts about their lives together and about what broke them apart.

She is propelled forward by the insistent voice of her mother-in-law, Isabella, but once she arrives in Greece, she is puzzled by the state of her husband’s hotel room. While he was not a neatnik, he was also not the sort of man who would leave this kind of disarray. After she has the staff box up his things, she stays on at the hotel for a while longer. She asks some questions, she ponders what she does know, and she considers the possibilities.

Then Christopher’s body is found. He had died due to blunt force trauma.

Now she is not quite sure how to feel, since they were unofficially separated, and there were issues of infidelity.

Why does she not tell anyone that the two were separated? What does Isabella say and do that will somehow make her decision for her?

My thoughts had me wondering why the story is told from the perspective of the unnamed wife. Does the fact of her namelessness reflect how unimportant she was to him? Could there be more to the story? By the end, we never find suitable answers to these questions, nor do we see a satisfactory resolution. We see characters adrift in a state of limbo.

The writing style, with the passive voice and the absence of quotation marks, kept me detached and uninterested in what might unfold as the days and weeks went by. A Separation could have been a compelling story, but for me, it was only okay. 3 stars.

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