The only thing London couple Celeste and Sean have in
common is their son, Harry. When Celeste discovers her
husband's journal on his computer one night after he has
gone to bed, she guesses his password and begins to read.
She is both intrigued and infuriated by what she discovers.
Apparently her husband, who is the full-time caregiver for
their two-year-old son, resents her working all the time as
a successful fashion buyer. He also repeatedly mentions a
particular woman from the toddler playgroup, which makes
Celeste jealous and also causes her to want her own
flirtation.
Celeste's therapist encourages her to talk about her sexual
fantasies during every session and wants her to keep
reading Sean's journal. At her therapist's urging, Celeste
begins her own secret diary on the computer to record her
feelings about Sean's entries. In real life, Sean and
Celeste may not feel like they are connecting, but their
writing is filled with the frustration, passion, angst,
arguments and inside jokes that their marriage seems to
lack. As Sean's obsession with the playgroup mom deepens,
Celeste takes action of her own.
The alternating narrative puts the whining and complaining
from both Celeste and Sean in some perspective. Since she
is responding to Sean's entries, Celeste often comes across
as defensive and selfish, while Sean is blithely continuing
his own self-reflection. Rebecca Campbell credits
her own husband as the inspiration behind Sean's writing,
which is a combination of weird wisdom and black humor. The
novel deftly explores modern marriage and child-rearing
dilemmas in an engaging format, never letting anyone have
the last word, at least for more than a few pages.
Meet Sean and Celeste -- living proof that opposites
attract.
Savvy and sophisticated Celeste is a top clothing buyer in
London; Sean is a scruffy, eccentric writer turned stay-at-
home dad who, courtesy of the couple's toddler, has mastered
the art of changing stinky diapers. Needing to be seen (if
only by himself) as more than just a drool- spattered Mr.
Mom, Sean begins a hilarious journal detailing the
ridiculous, wondrous, and sometimes salacious aspects of
being a househusband -- including such juicy tidbits as his
growing attraction to the beautiful Uma Thursday, a single
mother from his son's play group.
But when Celeste stumbles upon Sean's secret entries, she's
dismayed to discover she's opened a Pandora's box on her
marriage. Hardly the kind of girl to take a straying husband
lying down, she devises a scheme of her own, and the twin
strands of the will-they-won't-they plot become ever more
entangled. Can love trump lust? Can fidelity conquer
passion? Or will the destructive forces of untrammeled
desire wreck what may just be, for all its faults, the
perfect marriage?
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