Kinds of Love by May Sarton

I picked up Kinds of Love: A Novel because I have loved May Sarton's journals. I haven't read much of her fiction however, so thought I should.

This started out a bit slow somehow. It's an older style. We expected everything fast these days, start out with a bang to let us know something interesting will happen and then do a flashback to bring us forward. This starts with character, rather than plot. Maybe. I don't think I'm expressing it quite right. But if you're used to reading today's "Wham Bam!" novels, you'll need to take a few breaths and take the first few chapters on trust.

It's hard to describe the plot. It's the mixture of the summer people with year-rounders in a New Hampshire village. It's the present mixing with the past. It's classes. It's nature lovers. It's young love and mature love. It's friendship and marriage, both good and bad.

Set in 1969, Christina and Cornelius, a couple who have "summered" in the village for years, decide to stay the winter. Cornelius has had a stroke. Christina has an old childhood friend in the village who is a year-round resident, Ellen. Ellen's son Nick came back from serving in the war "not quite right" and has violent episodes over protecting animals. Ellen bristles when people see the village in idealistic terms. She sees a hard life with a lot of work and hardship. Generation and class differences are discussed and accepted and set up against each other.

It's a hard book to describe. As I said, it started out a bit slow but soon I was unable to put it down and couldn't wait to get back to it. Much of it is as valid today as it was when written.