“Love is a springtime plant that perfumes everything with its hope, even the ruins to which it clings.” –Gustave Flaubert

Set in 1979 in suburban Lakeside, Oregon, Sylvia Beekman’s denial to face her unhappiness in her eight-year marriage to Tom catches up with her. The responsible thirty-two year old housewife and devoted mother falls madly in love with Anthony, the new neighbor up the street. Guilt-ridden and ashamed that she’s leading a double life, Sylvia wrestles with the moral dilemma to stay with her unavailable husband or divorce him to marry Anthony.  

“How bizarre that she found more virtue in choosing the chaos of divorce and financial ruin than staying married and continuing in an affair.”

Ruled by their intense passion for each other, the two lovers discuss how to leave their spouses, but their original six-month plan turns into two years.  When the novel opens, Sylvia is losing patience with Anthony’s romantic words and promises and is concerned that her husband has found out about their affair. By the spring of 1980, Tom’s business venture is failing and Sylvia is fearful of being left with nothing. She feels pressured to move forward with the divorce even though her best friend, Jessica, advises her to wait for Anthony to go first.

“The rumblings of divorce in the Beekman household happened to coincide with the more dramatic geological rumblings occurring beneath Mt Saint Helens sixty-five miles away.  After one hundred and twenty-three years of inactivity, the general public didn’t believe that a major eruption would take place…The rise of molten rock inside the volcano was pushing aside the older rocks to make room for itself, creating what became known as ‘the bulge’…And it kept growing. 

While none of this affected Sylvia’s daily routine, a string of sunny days in April brought the slowly steaming mountain into clear view from all the windows along the back of her house.  On drives to the grocery store, to her classes in Portland, or on errands with Alice and Trevor, the mountain seemed to peek around every corner.  She couldn’t escape its fuming presence, and began to feel connected to it somehow.

She, too, had been dormant for a long time.  She, too, was releasing a lot of pent up energy.  Whether the mountain would remain content in this quasi-active state indefinitely, or would suddenly need to blow its top, was unknown.  For Sylvia, the lid was off.  She filed for divorce, and since she would have her Oregon teaching credential in June, began looking for a job to teach French.” 

While Anthony sits up the street making excuses why he hasn’t left his wife, the reality of the surrounding upheaval becomes overwhelming for Sylvia. With her children, Alice, nine and Trevor four, she visits her parents in Ohio to find the solace she needs. The illusion is shattered, however, upon arrival. Her schizophrenic brother is out of control and whisked off by the police to a local mental institution only to escape two days later and return home. Sylvia takes her children to her in-laws in Amish country and after a month in Ohio returns to Oregon.  During the lulls between the storms, we see Sylvia thrive as a French teacher, engage in the multi-dimensional characters of her family and friends, and travel to Italy, Greece, and France. Her life unravels as a darker side of Anthony emerges and we are drawn into Sylvia’s struggle to find the courage, strength and voice to stand up for herself. 

buy now>>