Meg Wolitzer's 2011 novel The Uncoupling mixes magical realism and suburban dysfunction. The novel centers on the students and faculty of Eleanor Roosevelt High School (known lovingly as "Elro") in Stellar Plains, NJ. A vibrant and intimidating new drama teacher, Fran Heller, is hired at Elro and decides to put on Lysistrata, the play by Aristophanes about a woman who leads the women of Ancient Greece to withhold sex from their husbands until the men agree to end the Peloponnesian War.
Soon, a "cold wind" begins to blow through Stellar Plains, causing the women of the community to lose sexual desire (and romantic desire). Teenage girls break up with their boyfriends, young women stop sleeping around for fun, and night after night, the wives of Stellar Plains turn away from their husbands.
It's not long before bitterness and sadness (mostly of the part of the men) begins to build to a fever pitch in the community. The men of Stellar Plains are literally begging the women to take them back, love them, and have sex with them again. I won't reveal what happens at the climax (heh) of The Uncoupling, but I will say that it's difficult to tell who triumphs in the end--the men, the women, or both.
[Side note: There's only one gay couple in liberal Stellar Plains, and the spell doesn't affect them. Apparently, there are no lesbians. Wolitzer gets a C- on her LGBTQA inclusiveness]
Wolitzer is excellent at the "realism" part, and not so excellent at the "magical" part. She masterfully creates a suburban world and high school that has just enough fictional elements to make it seem even more real, if that makes sense. She sprinkles made-up pop culture references (a band called "The Lungs" is named-dropped; the students of Elro are all into an MMORPG called "Farrest") that sound real, even though she just created them for the book. Wolitzer is great at getting the small details of suburban and high school life just right. I could see clearly the halls of Elro and what all the teachers and students looked like.
Wolitzer also gets the feelings that the characters go through. Every couple affected by the spell reacts differently: a passionate couple argue fiercely; an older couple who have already given up on sex give up on it even further and grow in resentment; a couple with a solid, happy marriage simply become bewildered and then resigned when the wife becomes repulsed at the thought of being touched. Each couple's current sex life is key to how they react when sex is suddenly off the table.
As far as the "magical" part, it's clear that the whole "cold wind" thing is just a construct to move the plot forward. The fact that it's supernatural (as opposed to a coincidence or a collective decision by the women) is taken for granted and then barely mentioned until the end. Why include this element of magic and then never comment on it or explain it? It's clear than the drama teacher, Fran Heller, has something to do with it. At the end it is revealed that, yes, the spell "follows" Fran, but she does not control it. She's not a witch or a gypsy with magical powers or anything like that. I thought this "explanation" of the spell was lame and flimsy.
Wolitzer is obviously more interested in the politics of what would happen if women collectively denied men sex. But even this intriguing scenario isn't examined very closely. The women of Stellar Plains start denying men sex, the men get upset--individual relationships get tense, but the community as a whole remains unaltered. When the spell is broken, most relationships are mended and are even better, and hotter, than before. This conclusion was a bit of an anti-climatic let down.
Overall, Wolitzer is great at describing people and relationships. If this book was anything, it was realistic, and the details of the characters' everyday lives were fascinating. Wolitzer is not so great at making a point. I read the book and wondered, "Did I learn anything about male/female relationships or men and women's sexuality?" No. No, I did not. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, because The Uncoupling was very well-written and entertaining. It just felt a bit lacking in the end, like Wolitzer had the opportunity to say something interesting and controversial...but chose not to.
I'd recommend The Uncoupling to readers who like literary fiction, specifically about adults living in suburbia. If you like Tom Perrotta, you'll probably dig The Uncoupling.
3.5 out of 5 stars
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