The Slippage

by Ben Greenman

The Slippage is a wry, wistful tale of marriage, lust, and disconnection from Ben Greenman, the critically acclaimed author of What He’s Poised to Do.




William Day must confront some uncomfortable truths about his life and his future when his wife Louisa asks him to build her house. The take-it-or-leave-it demand becomes all the more difficult to swallow when he finds himself grappling with a past recklessness, an ex-girlfirend’s son he considers his own, and his own wants for what lies ahead.




Sure to appeal to everyone who has ever been in love and had their heart broken, The Slippage shares uncanny truths about intimacy and modern relationships.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Literary Fiction

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2013

About the author

Ben Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker whose short fiction, journalism, and essays have appeared there, The New York Times, McSweeneys, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All Story. He is the author of several acclaimed books of fiction, including Superbad, Superworse, A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both, Correspondences, and the novel Please Step Back. HIs new book of stories What He's Poised To Do: Stories was published in June of 2010.

Reviews

[Larry H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd rate this 3.5, maybe 3.75 stars.

"The slippage is a specific thing. It's the moment when you start to lose your footing."

It's hard to tell where William Day's slippage began. Was it at the party he and his wife, Louisa, threw, when she didn't come out of hiding until the very end? Was it the moment an emotionally distant Louisa revealed she had bought property with inherited money, and asked William to build her a house? Or was it the unexpected reappearance of a person with whom he had a brief relationship some time ago?

Whatever was the instigator, something—or a combination of things—seems to be increasing William's discomfort with his life, his marriage, and his career, causing him to act erratically in all three aspects. And Louisa's fluctuating moods don't seem to help, although he tries taking solace in the time he spends with a former girlfriend's young son. But finally he is confronted with a major decision—build the house for Louisa or risk jeopardizing his marriage irrevocably. Meanwhile, he also has to deal with his artist brother-in-law's emotional baggage, and the increased tension of an arsonist stalking their town.

Ben Greenman's The Slippage is a well-written and intriguing book about relationships, but it's also more about the things left unsaid than the things that are actually said. So often in this book the characters didn't say what they were thinking or feeling, or didn't divulge the truth about a particular situation, which often led to misunderstandings or caused the characters to act in ways they might not ordinarily. At times I found myself wondering what the characters were really thinking, or what was motivating them to act the way they were, and that confused me occasionally. But these pauses, these secrets really made the situations Greenman wrote about seem more true-to-life.

I really enjoyed Greenman's storytelling ability, and thought for the most part, William was a really compelling character, although at times he, too, was a little more mysterious than I thought he'd be. But I found Louisa's character fairly unlikeable, and in fact, Louisa's actions toward the end of the book seemed somewhat out of character, so I wasn't sure if we were to take her at face value. Still, Greenman's voice is an enjoyable one, and I plan to go back and explore some of his earlier story collections to see the depth of his talent.

[Nicholas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Think Tom Perrotta but with little of the humor. Or Meg Wolitzer or Julia Glass but more suburban and with a lot less depth, detail, and empathy. The premise is interesting -- suburban marital ennui, and a falling apart of otherwise stable lives that begins with "the slippage" of the title -- but the book is gimmicky enough that you don't ever really feel that you know these characters. It's more like they represent people who might be experiencing all of these things, but as a reader you never gain access to the inner lives that allows you to understand how they feel about them. I believe that these sorts of things really do happen to people, but Greenman didn't make these particular people seem all that real. That makes it difficult to care about these character stand-ins, and if you don't care about them, you don't much care what happens to them. If the events described were more outlandish that might make up for the way he deals with the characters, but precisely because he is describing a scenario that we are meant to see as potentially anyone's story, it just ends up being a little bit boring.

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

I NEVER been the one that shared the majority opinion on life, in particular books. Rather I am the one that will disagree with the most popular vote,but in this case, this book was outnumbered by the ones that liked it. In the beginning of the book, it did not make a lick of sense, from the undefined plot to the poor characterization. It was crappy from the start, I should have trusted my instincts before I decided to give this book a shot.

Forgettable, trite, and a sloppy mess.

EPIC FAIL!!!

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have no complaints about this novel except that it was unexceptional, perhaps a mimetic impression of the bland flatness of midlife marriage in the burbs. In the supplementary material at the back Greenman states (admits? confesses?) that his editor told him it was time to write a conventional novel, so that's what he did. I wanted to break into him via "What He's Poised to Do" but I needed a cover that didn't have a scantily clad woman on the cover because I was going to be at my son's Rubik's cube competition all weekend. I would prefer not to be engrossed in softcore smut around a hundred teens and their milquetoast parents. (Oh god, now I'm tempted to take a stack of Harlequins and other assorted cliterature next time...!) Therefore "The Slippage." I enjoyed it enough to look forward to his ostensibly more experimental efforts. Humor, weltschmerz, the thousand tender stings of love and death and trust and betrayal, New Yorker prose, all that's here, it just never seemed to achieve liftoff.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, this book's getting hammered. Only 2.83 stars on average. It is kind of boring, but I liked it well enough. The Slippage is a psychological portrait of a suburban everyman whose midlife crisis is depicted as the feeling of losing one's footing (slipping) and finding the world a slightly off-kilter place where nothing is as it once seemed. This is symbolized by William's brother-in-law Tom, an artist who specializes in deconstructed charts. People trust charts and graphs to express concrete, objective data, he explains to William, so why not mess with their expectations? The atmosphere is further muddled by wife Louisa's bizarre behavior (hoarding mail, disappearing for entire parties) and a series of mysterious fires.

While Greeman is a competent writer, I think this is the type of novel that you really need to be a master wordsmith to pull off. He just lacks that poetic edge that makes the mundane worthy of reading about. However, I did appreciate Greenman not taking the predictable route concerning the identity of the arsonist. Your money is on Louisa (as an explanation for her strange actions), Tom (a rather troubled, unstable character), or William (the "slippage" has already caused him to finally lose it and punch his boss; who knows what other violence is revealed to lurk behind his placid exterior). Instead, the arsonist is completely new character.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Greenman deftly writes about suburban marital ennui. The concept of slippage really interested me. At what point, once you lose your footing, can you right yourself. William seems to float through his life making daily bargains with himself just to get through. His marriage is stagnant, his wife trying to reinvigorate them by insisting on a new house. William takes comfort in the house that they live in, comfort if not joy. In fact, joy is conspicuously absent in this book. All the characters are angsty, none of the action serves to move anyone toward happiness or satisfaction (except for maybe William's cold cocking his boss). Still trying to figure out if I left the book depressed or not. I certainly left the book wondering about my own suburban existence.

[Joanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another one for the started did not finish shelf. It was a present and not one I would have chosen, clearly the author was having some kind of mid life crisis. the main male character was such a sad sack who had a rather un-original affair, lost his job, he and his wife don't communicate anymore yada yada yada. BORING!

[Joyland Magazine]

Listen to Ben's appearance on our podcast, Truth & Fiction, where he discusses suburbia and the origins of The Slippage. http://www.joylandmagazine.com/brian_...

[LisaMarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ve had this on an old library wish list since it first came out I guess. All I can say is my taste in literary books has been honed down since then; now I would know right away this isn’t my kinda of book, even though I do generally like books about slipping marriages. Something about the tone. Not badly written but nothing made want to read past Chapter 2.

[Jemma · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I wasn’t inclined to invest in any of the character’s lives. The one thing this book did get right is the impossible need to want to get inside someone else’s brain. Sometimes at the end of a chapter that feeling was so potent that I was hoping the literary perspective would change from one character to another so I could feel some relief.

[David Walker-Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading this book gave me the impression that the author was more interested in sharing his "deep" insights in to the human condition and his ability to craft clever sentences than developing likeable characters or any discernible plot or actual story.

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Irritating, boring, can’t relate, don’t care.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book—kind of weird, kind of bizarre but super interesting and surreal. Not what I expected when I picked it up, and I really enjoyed and squirmed my way through this one.

[Ti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Short of It:

A fractured, splintered view of a marriage in decline.

The Rest of It:

When I first saw the title of this book I was immediately reminded of California earthquake faults and how they slip and slide every ten years to give us a good jolt of reality. Oddly enough, that’s kinda what this book is about. Marriage, on the brink of disaster and how the fissures eventually become full-on cracks if you let them run their course.

William and Louisa Day live in suburban bliss. Nice house, great neighborhood, interesting neighbors. One afternoon, while hosting one of his famous parties, William realizes that Louisa hasn’t come out to greet their guests. After trying to juggle his meet and greet duties along with cooking the food they are about to eat he goes in search of Louisa and finds her locked in their junk room. Forced to talk to her through the door, she seems okay but refuses to come out and only comes out after her drunk brother shows up and causes quite the scene.

Shortly after the party, Louisa tells William that she’s bought a plot of land and wants him to build her a new house. This innocent and somewhat far-fetched request triggers introspection but when an old flame of William’s moves into their neighborhood and rekindles what they started long ago, William’s not really sure what he wants.

The book opens with the party scene and within just a few pages, I was hooked. William is one of those funny, sarcastic guys that people don’t really pay attention to. His humor, if you can call it that, inserts itself innocently but the people on the other side of it rarely pick-up on his sarcasm. As he plods through life, you willingly follow along because although he’s a cheater and seems clueless about what his wife wants, he’s somehow more human than say the “suits” that he has to deal with at work or the guy next door or down the street.

As much as I love stories like this one, I had some trouble with Louisa. In one sense, she appears to be the voice of reason but her odd behavior, hiding behind closed doors and hoarding junk mail made me wonder if she was a little off. The other thing that bothered me is that William and Louisa hardly interact at all. Their interactions are short and abbreviated and her comments about anything had a throwaway quality to them. As if she was saying them just to say something. Perhaps, that is what a marriage in decline is like, but there was no heat… no tension. I expected there to be lots of it given the fact that their marriage was on the line. To me, they were looking at each other through a broken mirror. Their images greatly exaggerated and skewed.

After finishing the book, I concluded that all the women in the book seemed a little off. I couldn’t relate to any of them and found myself relating more to William which surprised me. As negative as that may sound, I still enjoyed the book quite a bit. Greenman’s take on suburbia was spot on. That party scene alone won me over and the wry humor made what could have been a very depressing novel, somewhat comical.

It’s not perfect, but what marriage is? If you’re like me and want to read something a little different this summer, give this one a try. It will give you a lot to think about.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter.

[Katherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

*Really 1.5 stars. I was surprsied. Neither very good, nor very interesting.
" 'I'm trying to figure out how to make things work now. If I do that, then the future's just the sound of that same note sustaining.'
" 'That's beautiful,' Karla said. The idea was something William had acquired from a magazine, which didn't make it less beautiful" (50).
" 'As Kepler said,' Tom said, "the untrained eye is an idiot" " (58).
"She forced capital letters onto the last few words" (71).
"…and he moved side to side to hang it [the moon] in the center of the pane" (71).
"William was increasingly convinced that he was a man of limits" (71).
"Adjacent yards supplied the sound of children" (74).
"Coming down in the plane over Chicago William read the city as a text, each block a paragraph, each building a word. What did that make the people? Characters, maybe" (84).
"…the crass cathedral of the convention hall" (85).
"The small band was stuck wetly in the middle of 'How Long Has This Been Going On?'" (88).
*So far, I'm unimpressed with the dialogue and much of the description. It seems either overwritten or too cute. Maybe that's the point? Somehow, I don't think so.
*But then I come across more wonderful passages like:
"Approximate hospitality was better than none at all" (104).
" 'It's a virtuous circle'" (105).
"More precisely, he thought of what they weren't seeing: they weren't seeing the trivial details of the day, the things that had to be moved into close range so that they would seem significant at all" (106).
"He showed a high percentage of teeth" (109).
"Much of life turned out to be a test of how much you could forget without losing the thread entirely" (117).
"Others finished out a bottle of chocolate syrup while they watched a movie about those people" (133).
"Even Fitch's emails fidgeted" (137).
" 'I know it like the back of my own hand, if my hand had lots of clearance sales'" (140).
" 'Think about fire, though. There's this absurd idea that it needs people to set it. It's so much older than we are, so much more basic to the planet. We have our human creativity, but it pales in comparison to what fire does. It destroys other things and creates more of itself'" (151).
" 'No,' William said. 'I'm conducting an experiment to see how entitled and oblivious people are'" (163).
"There was no rain yet, but the sky was the same color as most of the tombstones" (179).
" 'It's just that some time I like to get away. It gives me perspective. You know: see how the other half of my mind lives'" (193).
"He tried to rouse her with planning. He spread an oversize sheet of graph paper on the kitchen table" (201).
"His rheumy eyes suggested an almost comic sense of self-doubt" (204).

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world seems to shrink when one wakes up and realizes that they are middle aged and have not accomplished all that they have set out to do. They feel suffocated by the stagnant repetition of everyday life and nothing seems to inspire them. The world seems to tip and their feet begin to slip as if they are losing their grip on reality. A quest is sought out to remedy this situation that often leads to misadventure and sadness. It takes a person to a place that they may have not wished they had ever gone to, but it is too late to turn back from. This book is about one such couple feeling this losing battle of reality. It is a story of William and Louisa Day, who find themselves in an unusual position. They are at a point where time has seem to stop for their relationship and a slippage has started to occur. Louisa has given her husband an opportunity to restore their future and reset the clock on their faith in one another by taking over a project for her. This project is to restore and rebuild a home that she purchased with money that she inherited from an estate. Not sure how to approach the situation, William encounters many cross roads along his decision to accept or decline this proposal. Soon he finds himself reacquainted with an old flame. Old emotions are visited and old desires are met. Will William create a home for Louisa and himself to grow old in? Will William choose to move on with someone else?

I have to first say that the author of the book is very talented and wrote with great detail. The characters seemed very life like for me and could have been my next door neighbor if I imagined it. The personalities of the characters were well developed and the history was clearly defined. I enjoyed this very much and it made the book easy to follow. Having said that I must say that I found the book overall to be rather slow for me. I thought that Louisa was an overbearing woman and William himself was an arrogant fool that could not stay faithful to his partner. I grew to actually despise William by the middle of the book and could not force myself to read it any farther. Many things were a little melodramatic for me and I found Louisa to be over the top. Either way I grew tired of the story. I do however want to thank the author and goodreads since I won this book in a giveaway. I was asked to give my honest opinion and I can say that it is not a bad book, it is just not my style of reading

[Uwe Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The slippage is a specific thing. It's the moment when you start to lose your footing."

It's hard to tell where William Day's slippage began. Was it at the party he and his wife, Louisa, threw, when she didn't come out of hiding until the very end? Was it the moment an emotionally distant Louisa revealed she had bought property with inherited money, and asked William to build her a house? Or was it the unexpected reappearance of a person with whom he had a brief relationship some time ago?

Whatever was the instigator, something--or a combination of things--seems to be increasing William's discomfort with his life, his marriage, and his career, causing him to act erratically in all three aspects. And Louisa's fluctuating moods don't seem to help, although he tries taking solace in the time he spends with a former girlfriend's young son. But finally he is confronted with a major decision--build the house for Louisa or risk jeopardizing his marriage irrevocably. Meanwhile, he also has to deal with his artist brother-in-law's emotional baggage, and the increased tension of an arsonist stalking their town.

Ben Greenman's The Slippage is a well-written and intriguing book about relationships, but it's also more about the things left unsaid than the things that are actually said. So often in this book the characters didn't say what they were thinking or feeling, or didn't divulge the truth about a particular situation, which often led to misunderstandings or caused the characters to act in ways they might not ordinarily. At times I found myself wondering what the characters were really thinking, or what was motivating them to act the way they were, and that confused me occasionally. But these pauses, these secrets really made the situations Greenman wrote about seem more true-to-life.

I really enjoyed Greenman's storytelling ability, and thought for the most part, William was a really compelling character, although at times he, too, was a little more mysterious than I thought he'd be. But I found Louisa's character fairly unlikeable, and in fact, Louisa's actions toward the end of the book seemed somewhat out of character, so I wasn't sure if we were to take her at face value. Still, Greenman's voice is an enjoyable one, and I plan to go back and explore some of his earlier story collections to see the depth of his talent.

[Shani · Rating 2 out of 5]

"William had been keeping two secrets..." I was intrigued by this story, and while the writing was very good, I just couldn't get into the characters enough to care about what happened to them. I was really intrigued by the title, and a piece of the book that talked about graphic representation. I wish the author used this more (though I found more used in the notes at the end of the book that I think should been included in the text itself).

"Lunch was the spine of the day. Everything else moved away from it in both directions, at a constant speed."

"'The slippery slope is for politicians and propagandists. The slippage is a specific thing. It's the moment when you start to lose your footing.'"

"...'any graph is a set of expectations. It tells you what's normal and what's exceptional, where there are gains and losses. But what if you suddenly find that you're plotting all your data on a graph that's coming loose? ...The slippage isn't the moment when a graph turns upward or downard. It's the moment when it turns on you."

"'Well, you know how you start life alongside everyone else and then, when you're young, detach from the mainland? You drift out on your little floe. At first it's exciting. Then it's scary. Then you look and see that all around you there are other people on floes of their own. They look close to each other, because they're far from you. If you could get close enough, you would see that they're all feeling the same terror. But you can't get close enough.'"

[Paolo Aceves · Rating 3 out of 5]

In order to enjoy a book, the reader has to somehow connect with the story in some level, and this is partly why I did not enjoy this book too much. There was a good story in there; just I did not associate with the material. I'm (I hope) far too young to relate with the main character of The Slippage; a middle age man going through (go figure) a mid-life crisis. William goes through most of the common clichés of the midlife crisis checkpoints: Anger expressed in outburst of violence (check) infidelity (check) losing his job (check) feelings of loneliness and/or misunderstood (check), projecting (check). The only cliché left out was buying a new sports car.
Another issue with this book was the slow pace of the narrative, it takes too long to set up the story, the first third of the book is entirely devoted on the set up, on the main character figuring trying to figure out what is wrong with his wife, and then through a flashback the story starts taking place and it gets easier to follow, but it still not a great payoff after all that slow set up.
Maybe in a few years this book will be relevant to me, but at the moment the material felt inconsequential.

[Lana · Rating 5 out of 5]

**I received a copy of The Slippage as a Goodreads giveaway.**

Greenman has written a story that is centered on conflict. Professionally, the protagonist is dealing with the stress of the corporate world. Personally, he is caught in a stagnant, childless marriage where an affair becomes a natural consequence. It is not the storyline that captivated me as a reader, as it is a plot that repeats itself often in literature. It is the writing that kept me turning the page. Greenman takes single moments, common to us all, and describes them in uncommon ways--a glass leaves "a series of circles that reminded him of cartoon thought bubbles", a woman is "sending up bright little flares of laughter", "William's week was a series of holes he could not fill, and he had to be careful not to fall into them."

The Slippage is an ordinary story that is told in an extraordinary way. I highly recommend it.

[PAP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy and gentle to read, this book seemed to pass through my mind like a pleasant dream. The writing lulled me into something akin to a trance, broken up only by the occasional, brilliant turn of phrase. And there were many of those.

I liked the main character, William. He came across as witty in a dry and slightly sarcastic kind of way. This said, I didn't understand him, whatsoever. Or Louisa, his wife. Or Tom, his brother-in-law. Or the neighbors across the street. Their actions weren't authentic, but instead what you'd imagine a character in a book would do.

The plot coursed on, aimless. I couldn't really tell where it was going or why; but all of that was okay because I wasn't having a bad time with the book. At the end, though, it kind of bothered me. And also in retrospect.

Not a bad read but not a good one, either. It's entertaining enough while it's happening but don't expect to take anything from it.

[Brian Grover · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid, if unspectacular. A quiet snapshot of a pair of quiet lives, it feels (mostly) real enough, and the dialogue has plenty of pop. However, I have some issues here. One, the two main female characters (the wife and the mistress) talk almost identically; I'd have appreciated a clearer division of major characters. Two, the guy (William) is just a little too glib. Greenman would have done well to make him a little less comfortable, a little less quick.

As an aside, it's patently ridiculous how he and his mistress reconnect, but that's a flub you just have to write off and move on from.

[Corrin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started our a 2-star book for me, and if I made a practice of abandoning books, I might have done so. I am, despite plenty of terrible books, still a literary optimist, I guess, and this book improved greatly in the second half. Not a light-hearted read, that's for sure. The characters all came across as slightly unformed, and in the first half seemed to act randomly, without motivation. Greenman does tackle some Big Ideas that are slightly depressibg, really, but interesting. No new ground, though.

I am intrigued to read some of his other work after reading the interview w/Greenman. And I love his charts.

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like Ben Greenman's sense of humor (at least as it presents itself within his writing) as combines cleverness, sharpness, and yet also a senes of warm-heartedness. The Slippage had those qualities but the overall plot arc didn't have quite enough oomph for me. But it worked as a nice, fast cloudy day read.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok. I was shocked at how upset William got at the end of the book when Louisa made her big announcement, considering what he'd been up to. Overall I didn't really like the characters. I just wanted to reach into the book and slap them and yell, wake up. Louisa's brother Tom was a comical addition to the book. I liked his graphs.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was pretty good - it had passages that were extremely well written, but in the end was a long description of relationship ennui. About halfway through I was really into it, but by the end didn't feel the same way, although the interview and author comments afterwards did lend it some increased gravity, so there was that.

[Donna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Got this as a giveaway from GR and brought it to read on vacation. Couldn't make it past the first chapter. Everything about it seemed so cliche and over-written. I hate to abandon books but I just couldn't finish.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

There wasn't anybody likable (or all that believable) in the whole book. Of course I didn't realize that until about halfway through, so I finished it. It wasn't the WORST waste of time, but not too far off!

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 William and Louisa are a young married couple with no children, living in the suburbs. The "slippage" begins when William has a one night stand, and continues when he loses his job and doesn't tell Louisa. I found the concept interesting, but the characters were not interesting, nor likable.