I don’t know what I am supposed to feel about this book. This book wasn’t tragic. It was just sad. Plain sad. We follow the story of three people, from two perspectives, with one perspective more dominant on the other. And both of them talk about Tom, their love of the life. This book is so much about Tom, yet at the end of it I don’t know who Tom is. To me he remained a deceptive and dishonest character, till the end. 

I guess we are supposed to hate Marion. But I don’t. I hate her actions. I abhor her decisions to actively choosing to ruin someone’s life. But I understand where it’s coming from. She didn’t know what kind of marriage she was getting into. You cannot convince that Sylvie’s one comment of how Tom isn’t like other guys is supposed to be a clue as to who Tom actually is. Moreover, this story is set when homosexuals used to be called inverts and people believed it was a choice to do unnatural acts (that idea is still prevalent though) and a woman could cure a man out of it. Till this date, often gay people get married to straight people to pass off as straight. Who should we sympathise with? Marion was deceived by Tom. And Tom was never honest with her. He never tried to make her understand his feelings. He knew Marion loved him to bits and he took every advantage of that love. He never stopped to understand how his actions have affected her. Instead he called her jealous, hysteric and made it a point that she’s the one making senseless demands for her husband, even though she’s the wife. Towards the end of the book and possibly Patrick’s life, there’s a scene where Tom asks Marion, ‘What about my silence, Marion? Did you ever think about that? You have no idea……’ Does Tom not realise that his silence has proved costly? You married the woman, sidelined her and expected her to go along with it. If anything, Julia telling her truth to Marion might have been the event that made her understand how homosexuality isn’t a choice or something to be cured. 

It was also never learnt how much Tom cared for Patrick. Not even Patrick’s diary shows us that. Tom never visited Patrick at the prison, not even with Marion at his side. He didn’t even write to him. Patrick risked and lost everything for Tom, yet I do not know if Tom was deserving of this love or not. Why didn’t Tom go around looking for Patrick after he left prison? There was so little of this relationship written for us to see and care for. This felt like a redemption story of Marion. 

I loved only Patrick and Julia in this story. They both showed kindness to Marion. I wish whatever anger she had, was directed at Tom and not Patrick. 

And maybe it is just me, but I feel Marion was purposely written like this. Her choosing to visit the prison just to see how much Patrick was suffering was cruelty at its finest. So her finally confessing that she did wrong and then seeking out Patrick is so out of the blue because we don’t know how the years brought this change in her. Is it purely out of regret? Or out of some kind of understanding? What led her to this choice? There’s a lot I simultaneously understand and don’t understand about the characters of this book. Anyway, at the end of it, I just felt sadness.