Lisa's Reviews > Hearts

3.5 Stars

Hearts is my 3rd Hilma Wolitzer novel in my undertaking to read all 10 of her adult novels by year end.

Wright, Linda's husband of 6 weeks has a heart attack and dies. So Linda and her 13 year-old stepdaughter Robin, whom she barely knows, set off on a road trip from New Jersey to Iowa to Arizona to New Mexico to California. Along the way they learn more about each other and their selves.

Plan A is to take Robin to live with her father's relatives in IA. Wright is estranged from his family, and Robin has never met these folks. Can you imagine losing your only family, being taken halfway across the country, and knowing you'd be in a strange place dependent on people you don't know? Well as frequently happens, Plan A gets replaced by Plan B.

One of this novel's themes is loneliness. Linda is an only child whose mother was frequently away for her job as a baby nurse and whose father was ill with emphysema. Orphaned at 18, she has to make her own way in the world. Robin, also an only child, feels compelled to prop her father up emotionally after her mother leaves the family when Robin is 5. Neither have a network of friends or other people in their lives.

"It was the caverns that had upset them both, Linda thought. . . . It was the caverns and their lousy coming attractions of death, their promise of consummate loneliness. Then why did we have to be so lonely while we were still here? Restless, she turned from side to side, but with exquisite care not to touch or jostle Robin, who did not move at all".

"But it wasn't marriage she missed, or even Wright. She knew that the mindless body itself could experience loneliness, without memory, without thought. Even when she was a child, it had this same blind desire for touch. What if it never went away?"

We know touch is necessary for humans to thrive. During the early days of the pandemic, touch was what was missed more than anything else by those who lived alone.

By the end of their journey Linda and Robin realize that "you can become a family by the grace of accident and will."

Wolizter also takes on the social issue of attacks on abortion facilities. During the course of their journey, Linda discovers she is pregnant and considers having an abortion. She makes an appointment at a clinic in Ohio and has to cross through a group of protesters carrying graphic signs while a group of counter protesters demonstrate on the other side of the street and a patrol car is parked against the curb.

"Linda stared at them and had her first conscious feminist thought. This was a civil war, women against women, and the policemen were out of it, non-partisan, merely keepers of the law. But they were men and therefore, in their own language, the alleged perpetrators."

After the clinic is attacked while Linda is within she says, "Somebody . . . was willing to murder me and a few other people in the name of life."

According to Wikipedia, "In 1978, there were three arson attacks and four bomb attacks on abortion facilities in the United States. All but two of these took place in Ohio." These events were probably on Wolitzer's mind in 1979 when she was writing this book. I was 16 at the time and remember watching these scenes on the television news. Then and now the irony does not escape me that some people are willing to commit murder or significantly harm others in order to prevent what they deem to be murder. Personally, I think there are other ways.

Wolitzer's writing is strong, her characters well developed, and her overall story thoughtful. There are one or two scenes that are a bit implausible. And there is a plot point that is mentioned and then dropped.

I really liked this book, and it is not her best.