Songs in Ordinary Time

Songs in Ordinary Time – Mary McGarry Morris

Life in the 70s in little town Atkinson, Vermont is basically a snapshot of life in Smalltown, America. Although the Fermoyle family is at the center of the story, everyone is connected to everyone else in a small town, so we meet them all. We have Marie Fermoyle, who is defiantly raising three children on her own after divorcing her alcoholic husband 10 years ago. Her three children all struggle through adolescence, fight for independence, and all seek their own version of the “status quo” through different pursuits. The various uncles, sisters-in-law, neighbors, friends, and local clergymen all come into the story, adding their own secrets, new perspectives, and fresh problems. Out of nowhere comes Omar Duvall, a travelling salesman who has plenty of stories about what the future might hold, but is oddly reticent about his past. Stories add to stories, add to stories, until reality becomes so obscured by half-truths that everyone ignores it until the consequences are too big to avoid. But whether it’s pain, anger, deceit, or love, it’s always the same old story.

I would not call “Songs in Ordinary Time” a heartbreaking novel. It’s more like a slow pain that steadily builds throughout the book. Morris crafts a believable town with realistic, relatable characters. They are relatable because they all try their best – to make ends meet, to make others happy, to present the world with a happy, successful, “together” family – but something always goes wrong. The characters are hindered both by their own shortcomings and their misunderstanding of others’ behavior. By staying within their own perceptions and assumptions, they miss somebody else’s reality, which usually results in self-blame or confrontation. The two main motivations for actions in the book seem to be “I did it for you” or “I did it for me,” but somehow neither one actually achieves the desired outcome. It’s a painfully real novel about balancing personal desires with real-world demands while trying to come up with what you think everyone else wants. But when you focus too much on this, that, or the other, the stories take over reality and all you have left is that hollow feeling that nothing is just right.

I really enjoyed “Songs in Ordinary Time.” The theme of “maybe next time I’ll get it right” hits that spot in my heart that really wants to see everyone successful and happy all the time. The continual failure is distressing, but the continual effort to keep on with business as usual is admirable. Life doesn’t stop just because it isn’t going the way we wanted it to. I find myself wanting to give advice to the characters in the book, or at least to comfort them. The hardest part about reading this book, though, was all the characters. The complete cast includes more people than I can count on my fingers and toes, and although eventually I remembered most of them, it was really confusing at the beginning. This book has lots of layers, which makes for excellent reading, but getting through those first 100 pages is the biggest struggle. Stick with it, it’s worth it.