Many of us read in hopes of finding ourselves within a bound set of pages. Longing for the words we breathe in to reflect back an experience like our own, to let us know we are not alone on our journey. Dreaming that one of life’s great questions might be answered or that we may, at least, be steered in the right direction.
Lynn Steger Strong’s second novel, Want, is just this kind of book, particularly for women at a certain critical point in their lives. The novel’s synopsis begins: “Elizabeth is tired.” Balancing two children, a husband, two jobs, and financial struggles, she damn well has a right to be. With just this framework, Strong immediately draws to the forefront many scenarios women can recognise and relate to. Elizabeth is a teacher at a school for “underserved” children, a job she loves — nay, it’s the children she loves — but finds underwhelming. Also teaching one night class a week helps her to feel her PhD is still worth something. Exhausted as she may be, Elizabeth pushes herself further to make time for running — one of the few healthy coping skills which has consistently helped manage her depression — and to fit in any other sliver of time for herself which can be consumed undetected. She slips away from work early in the afternoons to read at a coffee shop, to meet a friend for a bite to eat; all the while her employer and husband are none the wiser. She also holds on to the remaining threads of a childhood friendship, a friend she longed to be like once upon a time, hoping to one day reignite their connection. And perhaps find in this friend some of the things she is missing herself.
Aptly titled, Want perfectly conveys that dark admission which is not to be spoken aloud — what it feels like to have so many of the things we are supposed to want, yet yearn still for the things we do not have. Strong captures the complexities of being a woman in her mid-30s who is profoundly grateful for what she has, yet still wants more. The freedom and carefree days of being single, without children, are mourned; the joy of parenthood celebrated; the weight of so many adult responsibilities felt through each word. Strong makes the reader feel the longing for a life in a different shape and colour and tone; the realisation that we may not have not become the things we thought we would be once upon a time. And ultimately the recognition that, just because we want something, does not mean we can actually have it. Yet we continue putting one foot in front of the other to make it through another day. We do the best we can, learning to be ourselves in this beautiful, wild world.
Strong’s writing is sharp, full of clarity, understanding, and wit. It is honest and tender and angry, like so many of us are — the scenarios, thoughts, and feelings rendered in a way that is incredibly prescient. Want shares the tides of our lives, the highs and the lows, the cycles of satisfaction and contentment (or lack thereof) which we all go through. It examines how the choices and mistakes we make along the way, both large and small, impact us and those around us.
I devoured page after page, longing for additional insights, seeking resonance with my own thoughts and feelings … and this is an experience I believe many other readers will have with this work as well. This is a novel that begs to be consumed, shelved, and revisited again in the not-so-distant future.
Want is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore! Many thanks to Henry Holt and Co. for providing me with an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are entirely my own.
Will you be picking up Want? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Grappling with motherhood, economic anxiety, rage, and the limits of language, Want is a fiercely personal novel that vibrates with anger, insight, and love.
Elizabeth is tired. Years after coming to New York to try to build a life, she has found herself with two kids, a husband, two jobs, a PhD―and now they’re filing for bankruptcy. As she tries to balance her dream and the impossibility of striving toward it while her work and home lives feel poised to fall apart, she wakes at ungodly hours to run miles by the icy river, struggling to quiet her thoughts.
When she reaches out to Sasha, her long-lost childhood friend, it feels almost harmless―one of those innocuous ruptures that exist online, in texts. But her timing is uncanny. Sasha is facing a crisis, too, and perhaps after years apart, their shared moments of crux can bring them back into each other’s lives.
In Want, Lynn Steger Strong explores the subtle violences enacted on a certain type of woman when she dares to want things―and all the various violences in which she implicates herself as she tries to survive.
