Molly Ringwald, When It Happens to You
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A kaleidoscopic view of a relationship in crisis from an actor who understands characters
Whether it’s a chance encounter or code-red crisis, every gesture in Molly Ringwald’s fiction debut has a ripple effect. Greta, one half of the couple at the center of this “novel in stories,” is shocked to learn of her husband’s infidelity. Her husband, Phillip, has been having an affair with their daughter’s violin teacher, and his philandering, laid bare in the opening story “The Harvest Moon,” sets the tone for the rest of the novel.
We get to know Greta through her relationship with Peter, an actor who recently left a popular children’s show and is at a crossroads in his personal and professional life (“Ursa Minor”). Meanwhile Phillip bonds with Marina, a single mother whose young son, Oliver, would rather go by Olivia (“My Olivia”), and their daughter, Charlotte, reacts to her parents’ separation with visits to neighbor Betty, who is trying to reconnect with her adult daughter (“The Little One”). In the title story, Greta’s feelings of abandonment sound like they’re being spoken into a tape recorder. “When it happens to you, you will wonder if he loved her. He will assure you that he did not, that it wasn’t about love.”
Drawing on her career as an actor (The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, The Secret Life of the American Teenager) Ringwald is very good at getting into the heads of her characters, from emotionally wounded children to a cuckolded wife and a man exploring his own fractured relationships. Observing each character can have the effect of watching surveillance video, switching between rooms. With her empathetic narration, Ringwald brings each one further into focus.
