Most people no longer expect much from a transcontinental flight: a movie, a snack, maybe a little deep vein thrombosis. But Peter Russell, the hero of James Collins’ Beginner’s Greek, is a romantic—he expects to meet “the perfect woman” on his New York-to-L.A. flight. Improbably, he does. His seatmate, Holly, thinks he’s pretty nice, too, and at the end of the flight she jots down her phone number for him on a page torn from her paperback novel.
Peter loses that slip of paper, as well as, he assumes, all hope of true love. Months and years pass while he pursues a career on Wall Street. He is on the brink of marrying his high-strung, well-meaning girlfriend Charlotte when Holly reappears in his life—married to his philandering friend, Jonathan.
The twists and turns begin, as every conceivable obstacle is thrown in the way of Peter and Holly’s happiness; infidelity, a freak accident, scheming parents, loony bosses and unplanned pregnancy all make an appearance. Peter endures his hardships stoically, leaping into bold action only in the final act of the story. Meanwhile, Holly nurses her private sorrows and disappointments with dignity and grace. Collins has a gift for capturing the nuances of personality that bring characters to life; he achieves a pleasantly arch narrative tone that just manages to keep the Dickensian cast of characters and many points of view afloat.
While reaching for so many angles on his story, however, Collins occasionally repeats a previous scene from yet another character’s perspective without moving the story forward. He sometimes over-elaborates a point or dwells on details and topics (Buddhism, La Francophonie) at the expense of plot. These are the faults of an ambitious book, and easily forgiven by the time the reader reaches the satisfying conclusion of Beginner’s Greek.
Collins’ dry wit is explained by his influences, Anthony Trollope and Evelyn Waugh. He is sometimes compared to Jane Austen, with whom he shares insight into the mating rituals of the upper class. His themes, however, are those of Shakespeare—the marriage of true minds, the star-crossed lovers. Fortunately for the cast of Beginner’s Greek, all’s well that ends well.
James Collins reads from Beginner’s Greek at 6pm on Wednesday, March 26, with local Jenny Gardiner (Sleeping with Ward Cleaver) as part of “Trying to Get it Right: Fiction about Marriage,” and again at noon on Thursday, March 27, as part of “Reading Group Choices,” during the Virginia Festival of the Book. For more details, visit www.vabook.org. Elizabeth McCullough is the author of Cville Words (cvillewords.com), a local literature blog.
