Marrying Friends

by Mary Rechner

When her troubled husband dies unexpectedly, mercurial Therese gets tangled in competing desires and demands--her own and those of her friends and family on Long Island. Ambitious in scope yet carefully observed, Marrying Friends deftly illuminates multiple characters as grief forces them to reimagine their lives and relationships. A frank and often wry look at the bewildering bonds between women, men, siblings, parents, and children, this novel-in-stories confirms Rechner's talent for capturing how we find meaning not only in our dreams, but also in our desperations.

Genres: Short Stories

210 pages, Paperback

Published October 24, 2023

About the author

Mary Rechner is the author of Marrying Friends named Best Short Story Collection by a Portland Author in 2023 by Willamette Week, the story collection Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women named to the long list for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and the novella The Opposite of Wow published in the Hong Kong Review. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as New Letters, Harvard Review, Gettysburg Review, New England Review, Kenyon Review, and Washington Square. Her criticism and essays have appeared in Litro, The Believer, Oregon Humanities, and the Oregonian. Treat is a word and music collaboration curated by Rechner and produced by Core Productions. She is the recipient of fellowships from Literary Arts and the Regional Arts and Culture Council, as well as residencies from Caldera and the Vermont Studio Center.

Reviews

[Amy Prosenjak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally not what I expected which is always fun. The character of Therese lets it all just be with no apologies, daring!

[Jodi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Quite exceptional - beautiful writing. This novel about humanity, our faults, our inner voices, ourselves, will stay with me for a long time.

[Evan Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marrying Friends is an excellent book of realistic fiction stories, although I took extra enjoyment in reading it as a continuous work, a novel-in-stories, as they say. Set mainly on Long Island, it follows the intertwined lives of a range of characters across an arc that begins with one character's untimely demise (his wife has just found out she is pregnant) and ends with the birth of her child, at which point the characters are in very different places in life!

What gripped me about the stories was the narrator's point of view. In each story, we are close within one character's point of view, which is pretty typical of realistic fiction, and yet here the narrator always seems to know a tad bit more than the characters do. (I want to say this is a classic John Updike trope, but any similarities between this book and Updike end right there!). This effect is successful because the characters continually push against the expectations that society has placed upon them; there are larger forces at work, or so the characters believe!

I enjoyed the stories so much that I actually slowed down my pace of reading. Instead of one story per night, I was doing one story per week. I didn't want to leave the world of the book.

[Amanda Howells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subtle, bold, funny, sad. I adored this novel-in-connected-stories, and haven't stopped thinking about it since I finished it a month ago. Friends, lovers, children, parents—roles mix and shift in ways unexpected and also delightfully, uncomfortably familiar. Kicking off with a funeral in Long Island, Marrying Friends reminds us that even when we think we've got our act together as adults, family gatherings will unravel us because your sibling's got your number. And vice versa: maybe adulting isn't going so well, but a dreaded return to the childhood home may fortify us. This is one of those slyly brilliant novels that manages to carry a large cast—each with intriguing back stories—without being a chunker. It's also tonally diverse in a way I can't quite figure out: straight-talking but nuanced, sharp but generous-hearted. In lesser hands, the scope of the relationships depicted here could make your head spin, but Mary Rechner grounds us in truth: of course a grieving widow can be an adulterer, and a rival can be a friend can be a sister. We contain multitudes.

[Joan Dempsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've heard others compare Mary Rechner's work with Elizabeth Strout's and I concur: characters you feel like you know, stories you relate to, a feeling that you've been living another life when you've finished the book—you'll be wondering what these characters are doing now! What I most love is how these characters say or think the things we humans want to say but normally keep hidden; there's a vicarious pleasure at watching this crew do their human-living thing, in all its glorious messiness.

This novel-in-stories is written in simple, masterful prose, but the writing is far from truly simply—subtext is rich and layered, and Rechner is a wizard at mixing hilarity and poignancy, sometimes in the same sentence. No word is wasted in her skillful hands, and you'll savor each and every one. If you're a writer, you'll want to re-read to find out the answer to how did she do that?

If you like Strout's Lucy Barton books, you'll love MARRYING FRIENDS.

[India Little · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It reads like a collection of short stories but all of the characters are very closely related and interact and the stories are told linearly, so it flows like a novel. The characters are all deeply flawed and interesting, each story told in close second person; I loved learning what one was feeling or thinking before understanding in the next story the perception of them by other characters.

This was recommended to me by a bookseller at Broadway Books in Portland, Oregon and think this is the true point of my review: ask your local bookseller for recommendations!!! I commented that I liked the cover of this book but knew nothing about the author and the seller raved about it -- a local author, a small independent press... something I likely never would have bought without her rec. Taking this learning w/ me back home to Brooklyn. Don't just buy off the "new & notable" table! Looking forward to reading more of this author's work.

[Dawna K. · Rating 5 out of 5]

So very smart, funny, and poignant, MARRYING FRIENDS immediately drew me into its world of compelling, sometimes prickly, always fascinating characters. The novel beautifully illustrates the complexities of love, family, friendship among people who know each other sometimes a little too well for their own harmony. The setting of Long Island - with its particular social customs and cultural markers - feels fully lived in, and I was completely invested in the lives of these friends and relations as they struggle to find their way, individually and as a group, following a shared tragedy.

Rechner's writing is keenly observant, humane, and beautifully crafted. In addition to long-standing friendships, her themes also touch on motherhood, the secrets we keep from those we love, what it means to be an artist, and more. I found myself thinking about these characters and their stories long after I finished the book.

Highly recommended!

[Alex Behr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fans of Elizabeth Strout should check out Mary Rechner's second collection, Marrying Friends. This novel-in-stories of intense rivalries and lust, of unexpected deaths and shifting loyalties, made me regret that it's only 200 pages. Rechner loops in and out of characters' points of view -- across gender and generations -- while maintaining a singular sense of humor and compression. I wanted to be with the characters, if only to warn them not to make that same mistake again. And perversely, I wanted to see the fallout. We're all vulnerable, and Rechner turns up the temperature. It's a cathartic release to read her work.

[Miriam Gershow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Big Mary Rechner fan here (full disclosure: I wrote the introduction to the new edition of her first book, Nine Simple Patterns for Complicated Women, because I love it so much). Marrying Friends continues Rechner's sharp, human, and humane writing. She has a gift for probing her characters aches and longings, especially when those come up against societal expectations. Marrying Friends carries us across a whole friend group in the wake of death, betrayal, infidelity, and she manages to delivers us to something like hope. This book is meaty and satisfying and layered and complicated and so, so good.

[Dina Levy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters and stories all weave together and make you feel that even the everyday ordinary times in life are never ordinary and that life is a series of twists and turns. And that relationships are complicated, from lovers to parents to siblings. A great read from page 1 until the very end!

[William Humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished Marrying Friends! It's a great read for those who love the arts and a good 'friend' story. These characters are complex and engaging...I wanted to see how it would all end. I was not disappointed! Will be giving it to some of my friends as holiday presents!

[Meegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The characters and the dynamics between family and friends take you on a ride you don’t want to end. My only complaint is it ended!

[Lukas Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Portland author

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It so captured real people at a real time in scratchy situations. I appreciate her ability to bring people alive with all of their complex dynamics. If you were born on the east coast in the 60s, it’s hard not to identify or alteast recognize the world so well created and brought to life. Highly recommended.