The Wedding People by Allison Espach [Book Review]
Every reader knows how rare it is to come across a book that moves you to the core. One chapter into The Wedding People: A Novel by Allison Espach, and I was intrigued. By the time I was halfway into the book, I knew it was too late, already nostalgic for the experience of reading it for the first time. Goodreads’ summary claims the novel to be ‘propulsive’, and indeed this is what the experience was, the words on the page bouying and carrying the reader toward unpredictable, satisfying endings.
Set in a gloriously extravagant wedding in Newport, Rhode Island, the setting is a wonderful, slightly-absurdist bubble for a surprise wedding guest - Phoebe - and the wedding people. In the lowest point of her career and marriage, Phoebe splurges on an evening at the Cornwall, never expecting to stumble into a picture-perfect wedding of Lila, who has planned for every detail of this million-dollar wedding and never expected Phoebe, either. When the two starts confiding in each other, we start to unravel how beautiful life can become when one chooses to shape it.
Heart-wrenching in its honest, wise, unabashed insights, the dialogue is cutting and the plot is unpredictable. Espach writes in a way that feels reminiscent of the literary frankness of Waiting for Godot, the interactions between characters quick, witty, and cutting. Juxtaposed against the humor are sentences so tender it makes you feel 5 years old again, and I often found my breath stalled at just how precise and honest Espach has captured universally vulnerable moments of life. The book is written in third-person omniscent, a beautiful stylistic choice that Espach takes advantage of, offering illuminating insights that advance characters with an efficiency I’ve rarely encountered. As the main theme of honesty and bravery swells through the novel, this perspective slyly reveals itself to the reader in an unexpectedly satisfying way, a church confessional performed in ink. An ode to the humanness of life, this book made me feel seen, more courageous, and a renewed faith in the beauty of what we can be to each other.
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As a main character, Phoebe was at first anxiety-inducing for me. An adjunct professor who, after a decade, is still trying to publish her dissertation, never gaining the respect and recognition of her colleagues - that is nothing if not a grad student’s nightmare come true. When the book opens with her suicide plan to take her cat’s tuna-flavored painkillers, it’s quickly made relatable to the readers. In the first few chapters, and in flashback inserted as reflection (very well-done, I will add, to jump across time without making it obvious and jarring), we see Phoebe as someone who is intensely and paralyzingly confined to the bounds of her life. She is in what she believes to be a failing career, no longer finding joy in teaching her students, bogged down by photo-copying poems that 20 year-olds do not relate to, celebrating her husband’s successes in the same university while her colleagues forget they’ve met her for the third time. It frames - and there is no other way - Phoebe’s life as genuinely, absurdly, unbelievable rock bottom. After six rounds of IVF and a miscarriage, after her huband Matt cheats on her and leaves her for her best friend Mia, after the divorce is finalized over zoom in the depth of the pandemic, after she finds her cat and only companion dead in the basement, there is nowhere left for her to go than Cornwall Hotel, the destination and object of her fantasies. As I was reading this book, I kept imagining how hilarious and cinematic if this book were to be made into a Wes Anderson film - because in these movies, and in this book, it makes sense when Phoebe is disappointed that there are no oysters for her last meal, and that she decides not to die because she wants to hear the end of the bride’s mother’s speech.
“There are some people in this world who remind you of exactly how you like to speak.”
As we meet Lila and Gary, the tension starts to move the plot, and Phoebe conveniently gets to practice this new version of herself, the one who decided not to kill herself. Espach introduces and uses foils effectively - Lila and Phoebe, Matt and Gary, Juice and her unborn child - to cast into sharp contrast the windy, inevitable paths that each takes to end up at this moment together. Lila, introduced as an unfathomably self-absorbed bride, brings a breath of fresh air that allows Phoebe to match Lila’s attitude and finally stops passively moving through life. Gary’s warm, insightful, vulnerable presence reminds Phoebe just how long as been since she’s felt this way in her relationship with her ex-husband. Juice - one of my favorite characters - allows Phoebe to understand that there is another way forward beyond the romanticized fantasy, beyond the anonymous mental pictures of baby fingers. In the way that only foils can be, they also reflect the most hidden parts of each other to confront painfully. In the way that only children can be, Juice also allows Phoebe to understand the hidden, hungry, unloved parts of herself that she’s buried shamefully over the years. In the way that meeting a lover after so long can be, Phoebe has the capacity to recognize the bravery that it took for Matt to acknowledge their relationship had soured.
We meet others, Suz and Nat and Jim and Marla and Patricia and unnamed grandparents. At times, it can feel like the characters are solely there to advance Phoebe’s plot, but this is remedied by the uncovering of small, endearing tidbits for each character, like how Suz calls her child The Little Worm. Even though the story is written in third person omniscient, most of the details are centered on Phoebe, creating an unbalance that Espach addresses through utilizing this perspective to offer quick insights between dialogue - similar to a confessional. As we gain balance by absorbing colorful details about others’ lives, the narration avoids being unreliable toward Phoebe. I found this balance and trust in the narrator to be important, as the writing walks the line between ironic and genuine, Phoebe’s inner thoughts can easily read as straightfoward and cringey if one is not convinced of their vulnerable earnestness.
“‘I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t trust what I was feeling.’
‘Funny how you can live long enough, go through eneough, and learn how to stop trusting yourself.’”
One of the main themes running through the book is the bravery it takes to live a life. Starting as a trickle in the beginning and a full force wave near the end, the plot explores inaction and the impossibility yet necessity of action. This theme is introduced through placing a false climax at the start, where Phoebe decides to take action - to kill herself - to resolve the unhappy winding life that has somehow carried her to this moment. This moment, or the moments leading up to it, is actually an inaction in disguise. It’s the natural course, until interruptions happen - there is no drain plug in the bath, no room service of oysters and lobsters - that are minute and silly to emphasize just how easy it was all along to disrupt a decision. In a circular literary ending, Lila calls off the wedding after describing how she’s been worried for two years that something would come along to ruin the wedding, that little things - the wrong car to take her to the aisle, the missing palate cleansers at the rehearsal dinner - feel like wedding-ending signs. In both of these women’s stories, the large decisions (killing oneself, getting married) stand in relief of tiny mishappenings that deviate the decisions, because they were never true, honest actions in the first place. Or rather, they were at one point, but didn’t continue being true, and somewhere along the line it just became the easier thing to believe. As someone who doesn’t believe in wrong choices, as the universe doesn’t punish you for making one rather than the other, I found the book an effective boost of self-trust in the face of choice. The best of life come from being an active participant, from saying your truth especially when it’s scary, from saying yes to morning surfs, from holding funerals for plastic toys, from choosing and not letting life choose for you. The recognition of the bravery that it takes to make decisions partially absolve, or at least allows us to empathize, with the book’s antagonists. It’s brave to go after what you want, and that can be separated from the way in which it’s done hurts others. An offering for us to absolve ourselves.
Interspersed with moments of humor that made me laugh out loud, the book was a poignant, eloquent, carefully delivered philosophical musing that still feels light-hearted. I particularly enjoyed the writing style and literary mechanics - although at times feeling obvious and cliche, I was quickly pulled into the book every time I picked it up again. Readers that have less time or attention to give might feel as if they are unable to sink fully into the writing style and pace of the plot. For me, the book flew by (two days!) and pulled me right along with it, giving a renewed sense of how good it feels to devour a book. Honest to the way life feels, this book does well with contradictions by being absurdist, cynical, genuine, simple, vulnerable, embarassing, frank, all in turns. In the best way possible, it feels like someone vomited their heart out to show you it. And as a lover of life, The Wedding People did a laudable job of capturing the small acts of honesty, the essence of who we are and can be to one another, that make life so precious and joyful.
“‘But it’s also true that this weeding will never be a waste,’ Phoebe says. ‘Because I came here to die. And now look at me.’”