The Twoweeks

Cal Byerly and Lara Cleary spend the night—and the bulk of Duberstein’s (The Day the Bozarts Died) short yet bloated novel—reading from her journal and discussing “the Twoweeks,” 14 days in 1974 when the couple stole away from their spouses. At the time, Lara saw the affair as a temporary respite, a “way to handle [her] emotions,” yet suspected Cal wanted to “Jettison the Twoweeks agreement... and be ‘together forever’.... [They] were so right for each other it was worth any devastation [they] would leave in [their] wake.” Since their love story is framed by the present-day journey of Cal’s grown kids and their younger half-sister, Iris, to their father’s country house, there’s little doubt of the affair’s outcome. Even Cal’s self-assured, stagey patter (he’s an actor by training) telegraphs the wisdom of his past decisions and his contentment. But Lara’s contemplative moments save the book from dropping the stakes altogether. It is when she ditches the mild drama and assays the meaning of intimacy that the book finds love’s oft-troubling essence as well as its own. (Nov.)