Center Point
While I’ve been a huge fan of Waldman’s husband, Michael Chabon, for decades, this was my first novel of hers. I wasn’t disappointed. Mostly. The book is written, more or less, in three parts: One set in the modern day (really a decade ago, when the book was written), one part at the end of World War II in just-liberated Hungary, and the last set in 1913 in pre-WWI Hungary. The 1913 section, which ties up the loose ends of the first two parts, was written from the perspective of a psychiatrist whose journals show he was a creature—and the epitome—of his era. He was so paternalistic and arrogant I wanted to wring his neck. Also, the modern protagonist fell hard and fast into a relationship that was key to the plot, but felt a little less than believable.