©1997, ProMotion, inc.
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Review by Leah Odze Epstein
In her third novel, Love and Houses, Marti Leimbach explores the inextricable connection between our emotional centers -- our hearts -- and the central command stations of our lives: our homes.
Thirty-seven-year-old Meg Howe should have known trouble was coming when she and her husband put their apartment up for sale and bought an eighteenth-century schoolhouse. After all, her own theory "on love and houses" states that "you can tell love is waning in a couple's life when real estate has been elevated beyond the practical interest stage and into the dream house state . . ."
Still, she's taken by surprise when she's seven months pregnant and her husband walks out, leaving her with the prospect of being "a single mother with a double mortgage."
Meg's plight gives the hilarious Leimbach an opportunity to take readers on a guided tour of her cluttered closet of memories, jokes, and musings on everything from antiques to real estate agents, old lovers, nosy neighbors, and the joys (ha!) of pregnancy.
Leimbach's world is more funhouse than haunted house. She doesn't try to sweep the "dust" under the rug, but neither does she dwell on the dark corners of her characters' lives which, in this day of bleak, try-to-top-this memoirs and fiction comes as a blessed relief. Rather, she illuminates the humor as well as the small (and not so small) sadnesses in our everyday lives.
Reading Love and Houses is like having an especially satisfying visit with your best friend. Between the stories and the stomach-clutching laughter, some real confidences will be exchanged, some insight gained, until each of you walks away feeling somehow comforted by your shared humanity.
Leah Odze Epstein is a writer in New York City.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.