Years ago I enjoyed The Pilot's Wife by Anita Shreve. This time I read All He Ever Wanted by the same author. In this novel Nicholas Van Tassel is a professor at a small college in New Hampshire. While dining at a hotel one evening, the hotel kitchen catches fire. The dining room diners dash outside into the cold winter night. Nicholas catches sight of a young woman. Nicholas is telling this story as an 64 year old man on a train ride to his sister's funeral. The woman he sees that night eventually becomes his wife, Etna, as well as the mother of his two children. Reading Nicholas' words we learn that he is a pompous, arrogant, stuffy, controlling jerk of a man who got all he ever wanted but couldn't hold onto it because of his personality. The story was well told. There are reasons Nicholas is alone on that train ride. He deserves to be alone on that train ride.
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