Bill Roorbach

Just before a big storm hits, Eric, a small town Maine lawyer is in the line-up for checkout at the grocery store. In front of him is a scruffy young woman who looks to be homeless and down on her luck. Before too long he has paid for her shortfall, driven her to her cabin in the woods, chopped wood for her, donated his groceries as he can see she doesn’t have enough to survive being snowed in during the duration of the storm. By the time he leaves, the winds are howling and the snow is show more mounting up. He barely manages to
hike back through the woods to the main road. His car has been towed. With nowhere to go, he returns to the cabin.

What follows is an intense, claustrophobic few days as these two strangers are snowed in together. The cabin is extremely rustic with no plumbing and only a wood stove for heat. Both the floor and the walls have cracks that allow the snow to drift in. The young woman, Danielle has many secrets and tells many untruths. Eric slowly uncovers the lies, peels back the layers and in the process of doing so, unburdens his own troubles and reveals a great part of himself to her.

Extremely readable, this was a hard book to put down, I read this book in gulps, completely absorbed in both the depth of the character study and the hazard that they were in. I felt rather like an interloper between these two damaged characters as they search for and perhaps find a new path in their lives. I found The Remedy For Love to be both a lyrical exploration of the nature of love and an absorbing story about both physical and mental survival. show less

I had high hopes for this novel, given the reactions of other readers I respect and some early buzz I'd heard. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but I found the book kind of boring. It's the story of two strangers, stranded together during a blizzard in rural northern Maine, who slowly begin to let their defenses down and reveal their histories, damages, and secrets, not just to each other but to themselves. The book has a naturally claustrophobic feel to it, and for me, it was made show more worse by the sense of being trapped with two people I found neither sympathetic nor very interesting. Their stories were predictable and a bit trite, and I found myself looking forward to the end of this unusual, sometimes compelling, but ultimately disappointing novel. show less

Bill Roorbach's early "romantic memoir," SUMMERS WITH JULIET, is something of a hybrid puzzle, but maybe that's only me. It's a mix of nature writing and a love story. It documents the eight years he courted/dated Juliet Karelsen, who was eight-plus years younger than he, an independent free spirit, who wasn't ready to wed. But then neither was Roorbach, a sportsman, musician, drinker, guy's guy sort of man. They met in 1982 on Martha's Vineyard and enjoyed (endured?) an on-again off-again show more relationship for the next eight years as each pursued separate interests and part-time, pick-up jobs around New York, he as a plumber/construction worker and handyman, she as a waitress. Both were also long-time students, attending post-grad courses of study in painting (Juliet) and writing/literature (Bill). Roorbach read voluminously and wrote furiously, sporadically, dreaming of being a writer, as they traveled together during their summers - south to Georgia and Florida, and west to Colorado and Montana, their disparate personalities often clashing. Juliet was fearless and carefree, while Bill was a bundle of secret fears and anxieties. During these go-for-broke summer vacation trips, he read, wrote and taught himself the pleasurable skills of fly-fishing while she taught herself to paint. Probably the best part of Roorbach's writing is his self-effacing sense of humor. I mean this guy is very funny, and also a very good writer. His relationship with Juliet is laid out there, warts and quarrels and makings-up - it's all in there, sometimes quite moving and often just plain hilarious.

I love the way this guy writes. But I will admit that I skimmed a few of the parts about fish, fishing, turtles, birds - the "nature writing" stuff. I mean some of it was pretty interesting; you could tell it interested HIM, and that he'd enjoyed researching all of it and "observing" all this stuff. But me, nah, not so much as him. But don't mind me. This book is just filled with some damn fine writing. And I will particularly recommend it to my friends who are fishermen and outdoors enthusiasts. And since Roorbach obviously is a guy who loves books and literature, I'm pretty sure we could have some pretty good conversations. SUMMERS WITH JULIET (1992) was Roorbach's first book. And a damn good one. He's written several others since then. Soon I plan to read his newest book: THE REMEDY FOR LOVE, a novel due out this month. I am looking forward to it. Write on, Mr. Roorbach. show less

This is a deeply moving, powerful story that explores love and intimacy in the face of loneliness, fear and loss. It begins at the onset of a huge blizzard in Maine. Eric, a 34-year old lawyer separated from his wife Alison (at her initiative), helps a young homeless-looking woman get her groceries to her cabin in the woods, and then the two of them get stuck there as the storm worsens.

The woman, Danielle, 28, is thin, unkempt, and bruised; clearly she is frightened of Eric and keeps telling show more him her husband Jimmy will be back any moment. Eric has no wish to take advantage of Danielle even as he knows Jimmy couldn’t get home if he tried, no more than Eric can get out. So Eric and Danielle try to make the best of the situation - each in their own way. Over the course of their confinement, a strange and wonderful intimacy develops between them. It turns out they each need rescuing, and they come up with an unusual way to make it happen.

Discussion: There is some beautifully crafted and evocative writing in this book. When Eric looks out from the cabin at the falling snow:

"...gazing long, [he] admired the birches bowed in fair arcs on the far bank, balsam firs like court ladies in tiered dresses, green emerging only darkly from the strange humps where whole jungles of alder ought to be."

And how perfectly illuminating when Eric contemplates what went wrong with his marriage, thinking about how he and Alison started to argue about the minutest factual things:

"...these two people who deeply agreed on everything getting as hot over details of their orthodoxy as the old protestant pastors, nuanced positions breaking the church of their romance into splinters and then splinters of splinters, sharp things to be deployed at any time."

Or this stunning passage, when Eric begins to notice Danielle's odd appeal:

"Something startling in the shapes her clavicles made, not that he was looking. She'd startled him all day with her strange, retractable beauty, like a cat's claws."

Evaluation: This is a lovely book. I was reminded a great deal of Tom McNeal’s To Be Sung Underwater. The ending here is much more uplifting, but the adult exploration of the nature of love is similar. I definitely want to read the books he has written previously. Highly recommended. show less