Review: So Long at the Fair

"Betrayal vs. loyalty...lust vs. love...infidelity vs. honor..."

Told in flashbacks between the present and 1963, So Long at the Fair by Christina Schwarz (author of the acclaimed Drowning Ruth), follows the story of two generations of several families in a small Midwestern town.

At the heart of it, though, is the examination of a marriage over the course of one day, as a husband wrestles with adultery, a wife comes face to face with her past, and a mistress struggles with the future of her affair, while also being pursued by another man.

I found the flashback part of the storyline a little hard to follow, but that could very well be because I read the majority of it while sitting beside an indoor pool at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville (imagine children's voices reverberating off the walls and you'll get the picture).

The past, and how it completely intersects with the present characters, takes the whole book to come together, but the pieces finally do fall into place. And, even though I wasn't always sold throughout, I was engaged enough and able to see that we were headed for a very dramatic conclusion, so I stuck with it. It wasn't my favorite book of the year, but it was a short read that did keep me curious, albeit sometimes confused.