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A review by philippakmoore
The Fixed Stars by Molly Wizenberg
5.0
I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Molly Wizenberg's two other memoirs (A Homemade Life and Delancey) - this is the first one that is not focused on food, but on another kind of hunger. And personally I think it's the best of the three.
I followed Molly's blog Orangette for years; I remember sneaking peeks at it on illicit "internet breaks" in a boring bank job I had in 2004! Her writing has always been intimate and inviting, but The Fixed Stars takes her writing to another level that is more personal and revealing than anything that's come before it, and demonstrates what an interesting evolution she has had, in life and in her writing.
The premise of The Fixed Stars is a very interesting one - Molly, mother to a young child in her mid-30s and married for nearly a decade to a man, finds herself suddenly attracted to women, one in particular while serving on a jury. Like many heterosexual people, Molly had never questioned her sexual orientation before. She saw it as a stable, fixed part of her identity. Or certainly that she was "straight enough to not think about whether I was straight", as she puts it. To discover that her sexuality was more fluid than she realised was a huge shock, to her and her husband, and to their credit, they still obviously loved each other and do their best to accommodate this revelation by experimenting with an open marriage. It doesn't quite resolve things, as Molly has found herself profoundly and permanently altered and very ready to change the course of her life.
I found The Fixed Stars a fascinating read and a timely reminder that we never truly know what is going on behind the picture people present of their lives to the world. Molly's marriage to her husband Brandon always seemed like something out of a Nora Ephron film - they met through her blog, bonded through their love of food, and opened two restaurants together in Seattle. It always appeared quite idyllic and dynamic, from the outside looking in.
But as we begin The Fixed Stars journey, we sense that while Molly believes she is very satisfied with her life with Brandon (at this point, they now have a young daughter as well as their two restaurants), the truth is that she never wanted a life of being a restauranteur, nor being a restauranteur's wife. In Delancey she touches on this and comes to a happy conclusion that that's what marriage is about, letting the other person be who they are. But reading The Fixed Stars, you realise that Molly has compromised a great deal for Brandon to pursue his dreams. So while the revelation that starts the journey of The Fixed Stars comes out of the blue for Molly and her family, and she admitted on her blog when she shared the news "it's nothing I would have chosen", as a reader you can see that many aspects of Molly's life with Brandon were also things she wouldn't necessarily have chosen. She just wants to walk her daughter to school, write all day, cook and eat dinner together with her partner in the evenings, and go to bed at the same time - all simple things that are not really possible when your husband owns and runs two restaurants.
The Fixed Stars is a raw and intimate examination of the fact that life is not as logical or smooth as we would like it to be - and if something as foundational as our sexuality can alter over time, then who are we...really? Molly doesn't shy away from digging through her past, her psyche and the work of scholars - literary and scientific - to ponder this question.
Personally, I think the book would have been stronger without the regular quotations and references to outside sources (gender studies, scientific studies, literature, philosophy, etc) - I was far more interested in Molly's journey and the next step in her self-discovery. And of course with any memoir, particularly if you are young and the events you're relating are still recent, there is the inevitable tension between how much you're allowed (legally or otherwise) to reveal and how much you need to leave out or skip over. Molly doesn't hold back on herself but understandably has to when relating parts of the journey that involve other people. While I don't think it detracted from the powerful impact of the story, I can see other reviewers' points that this might have been a different, deeper book had it been written with another 10 years distance.
Nevertheless, it was a compelling and beautifully-written book that I could barely put down and devoured in a handful of sittings. The Fixed Stars is an eloquent reminder that nothing is certain and the life we have built for ourselves can change very quickly...and that is not always necessarily a bad thing. I look forward to reading whatever Molly Wizenberg writes next!
With thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.
I followed Molly's blog Orangette for years; I remember sneaking peeks at it on illicit "internet breaks" in a boring bank job I had in 2004! Her writing has always been intimate and inviting, but The Fixed Stars takes her writing to another level that is more personal and revealing than anything that's come before it, and demonstrates what an interesting evolution she has had, in life and in her writing.
The premise of The Fixed Stars is a very interesting one - Molly, mother to a young child in her mid-30s and married for nearly a decade to a man, finds herself suddenly attracted to women, one in particular while serving on a jury. Like many heterosexual people, Molly had never questioned her sexual orientation before. She saw it as a stable, fixed part of her identity. Or certainly that she was "straight enough to not think about whether I was straight", as she puts it. To discover that her sexuality was more fluid than she realised was a huge shock, to her and her husband, and to their credit, they still obviously loved each other and do their best to accommodate this revelation by experimenting with an open marriage. It doesn't quite resolve things, as Molly has found herself profoundly and permanently altered and very ready to change the course of her life.
I found The Fixed Stars a fascinating read and a timely reminder that we never truly know what is going on behind the picture people present of their lives to the world. Molly's marriage to her husband Brandon always seemed like something out of a Nora Ephron film - they met through her blog, bonded through their love of food, and opened two restaurants together in Seattle. It always appeared quite idyllic and dynamic, from the outside looking in.
But as we begin The Fixed Stars journey, we sense that while Molly believes she is very satisfied with her life with Brandon (at this point, they now have a young daughter as well as their two restaurants), the truth is that she never wanted a life of being a restauranteur, nor being a restauranteur's wife. In Delancey she touches on this and comes to a happy conclusion that that's what marriage is about, letting the other person be who they are. But reading The Fixed Stars, you realise that Molly has compromised a great deal for Brandon to pursue his dreams. So while the revelation that starts the journey of The Fixed Stars comes out of the blue for Molly and her family, and she admitted on her blog when she shared the news "it's nothing I would have chosen", as a reader you can see that many aspects of Molly's life with Brandon were also things she wouldn't necessarily have chosen. She just wants to walk her daughter to school, write all day, cook and eat dinner together with her partner in the evenings, and go to bed at the same time - all simple things that are not really possible when your husband owns and runs two restaurants.
The Fixed Stars is a raw and intimate examination of the fact that life is not as logical or smooth as we would like it to be - and if something as foundational as our sexuality can alter over time, then who are we...really? Molly doesn't shy away from digging through her past, her psyche and the work of scholars - literary and scientific - to ponder this question.
Personally, I think the book would have been stronger without the regular quotations and references to outside sources (gender studies, scientific studies, literature, philosophy, etc) - I was far more interested in Molly's journey and the next step in her self-discovery. And of course with any memoir, particularly if you are young and the events you're relating are still recent, there is the inevitable tension between how much you're allowed (legally or otherwise) to reveal and how much you need to leave out or skip over. Molly doesn't hold back on herself but understandably has to when relating parts of the journey that involve other people. While I don't think it detracted from the powerful impact of the story, I can see other reviewers' points that this might have been a different, deeper book had it been written with another 10 years distance.
Nevertheless, it was a compelling and beautifully-written book that I could barely put down and devoured in a handful of sittings. The Fixed Stars is an eloquent reminder that nothing is certain and the life we have built for ourselves can change very quickly...and that is not always necessarily a bad thing. I look forward to reading whatever Molly Wizenberg writes next!
With thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.