Dan's Book Review: Stone Creek

By Tricia Rayburn

When you're lucky enough to find love - the real deal, the kind that sweeps you off your firmly planted feet, makes you see stars and renders you incapable of deciding whether to wish every perfect moment would never end, or for the next perfect moment to hurry up and arrive - there's only one thing to fear. And that's that one day, it will go away. Stone Creek, a second novel by former book editor Victoria Lustbader, is a thoughtful exploration of the emotional intricacies of love lost, found and fought for.

Stone Creek opens with the morning routines of two very different men. In a quiet, rural town in upstate New York, Danny Malloy, a 30-something single father, opens his eyes, notes the scents and sounds of early morning in mid-June, and struggles to rise. There's construction to do, and his young son, Caleb, to tend to, but just like most mornings, Danny's stalled by the empty space next to him in bed. His wife passed away unexpectedly the year before, and Danny's still adjusting to life without her.

On the same morning in Manhattan, 54-year-old Paul Spencer wakes up automatically and is en route to the office 20 minutes later. Paul's morning routine is efficient and exact, just like everything else in his life. He's exceedingly ambitious, a trait that made him the youngest managing partner in his law firm's history, and helped win him anything he's ever wanted - including his wife, Lily.

As Stone Creek's central character, Lily loves Paul more than she's ever loved anyone, and years after their marriage, still wonders why he picked her to spend forever with. But since he did, she does everything in her power to ensure that he never regrets his choice. She's glad to do it, too, since Paul makes her so happy, and she even goes so far as to agree to his only pre-marital request of no children. This works well for a few years, until Paul makes a surprising selection for his next must-have: the baby he said he never wanted. When they try and don't succeed, Paul's glad they gave it a shot, and ready to move on. But Lily, finally realizing what else she wants besides Paul for the first time since their wedding, doesn't want to. She can't. Her inability to let go of this need causes a previously unthinkable rift in their relationship, and when Paul's consumed by a big case at work, Lily seeks solace at their vacation home in Stone Creek.

Here's where readers might wish Lily would just stay put in Manhattan, or escape somewhere, anywhere else. Because Stone Creek's a small town. It doesn't take long for Lily's and Danny's paths to cross, and for the pair to experience a powerful, undeniable attraction. Lily certainly has enough to worry about without the added confusion of a connection to another man and the type of family she will never have. And if Stone Creek had been written by someone else, this foray into the somewhat predictable would be a legitimate concern. But through graceful language and expertly shifting points of view that grant readers an all-access pass to the thoughts and fears of each member of this complex love triangle, Lustbader achieves what lesser writers couldn't. She convinces potentially disapproving readers that there is no right, easy answer. No one's perfect, and everyone's driven by similar needs and emotions, at similar and different times. And as such, there can only be one right answer: you must try. You must wake up every morning, and however possible, do what you can to figure it out.

Because as Lily will learn after a simultaneously painful, uplifting and freeing personal journey, it's the only way real love can endure.

Join Victoria Lustbader at BookHampton
Saturday, June 21, 5 p.m.
91 Main Street, Southampton
631-283-0270

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