Jill Clement's Revisits Initiation and Duration of Her Marriage with 30 Year Age Difference

Jill Clement's second memoir, CONSENT, covers a lot of ground but the central focus is on the relationship with her husband with whom she was married for more than 40 years who was 30 years older than her. Jill was a 16 year old  art student when she first met, and then seduced, her 47 year old married art teacher. I have three words for this: statue tory rape. After reading this sensitive, candid and eloquently written memoir, I've softened having been smitten by Jill's eloquence and uncertainties, and by a love that deepened over five decades spent together. "Does a story's ending excuse its beginning? Does a kiss in one moment mean something else entirely five decades later? Can a love that starts with such an asymmetrical balance of power ever right itself?" What struck me was Jill's questioning her younger self. "Were my acts selfless, or was this the price I was willing to pay for my own eternal youth-to always be the younger woman?" There are admissions to Jill's vanity throughout her memoir. "Where did Arnold get his energy? From me, of course." She further concedes,"How does one grow old as the younger woman?"..."One doesn't.  I always looked fresher than he. If I gained a few pounds, he gained more. If my skin wasn't as taut as it once was, his was looser". But as she came into her 50s and Arnold into his 80s, the disparity reared its aging folds. "He looked helpless and blind and unbearably old, and I feared that the most difficult part of my life was about to begin." This proves true, nevertheless, her steadfast devotion comes to the forefront with tenderness and a vital, solid partnership. "All I knew was that he was willing to learn from me, that I had something to teach." The balance in the relationship felt to be a true partnership; supportive, loving and wondrous. Each shared with the other first. Jill to read what she wrote to Arnold, and Arnold to show her his artwork. Both provided the other encouragement and constructive criticisms. They were gifted artists who shared the other's passions. CONSENT isn't a soft love story, or unflinching tribute to an entirely redeeming relationship. Their union disrupted a marriage and family and fed Jill's illusions. "From time to time, he must have yearned to return to his former life-the three bedroom ranch house, the comfortable savings account, all that he had given up for me." Jill noted, "The illicit, risqué lifestyle sited my fantasies of how artists and writers should live." Jill ends her enthralling memoir circling back to their beginnings, "...his arm dangling over the side-the same position he was in when I went to seduce him 45 years before. I crossed the room and stood over him. He stirred and opened his eyes. There might be a dispute about our first kiss, but there could be none about our last." 

S Harvey's ORBITAL Extraordinary Exploration of Space Travel and Humanity

Samantha Harvey's Booker Prize (2024) winning novel ORBITAL is an exceptional literary achievement that elevates the reader into outer space. It contemplates life's achievements, big and small. Harvey's eloquence raises questions of what gives life meaning while placing the reader inside an international space capsule. The power of Harvey's writing shares the experiences of feeling weightless in space packed in with six fictitious astronauts whose thoughts traverse thousands of feet above earth back down to their connections with earth and ties to each other. This beautiful novel feels expansive and condensed. It's both limitless in its grace while floating through the capsule or walking outside in space. There's also a sense of confinement within their spacesuits and space shuttle. The narrative pulls at your senses as well, and it imbues a visceral sense of weigthlessness. The quietness of its revelations from each of the astronauts is profound in their breathtaking observations looking back at earth and stirring in their mundane yearnings. "They speak about things they miss-fresh doughnuts, fresh cream, roast potatoes. The sweets of their childhood." The brilliance of the writing juxtaposes opposing conceits. "Those hearts, so inflated with ecstasy; at the spectacle of space, are at the same time withered by it." One astronaut questions his own motive for space exploration. "He's never sure if man's lust for space is curiosity. or ingratitude. If this weird hot longing makes him a hero or an idiot, Undoubtedly something just short of either." Our home planet is the crux of diametrical conceptions. "The earth is once again a glass marble in the blackest space. Bereft and fragile now that its neighboring stars and planets can no longer be seen. And yet it is, at the same time, the opposite of fragile. There's nothing there on its flawless surface that could break, and it's as if there is in fact nothing there at all-the more you look at it the less substance it has and the more it becomes an apparition, a Holy Ghost." Without rancor or proselytizing, the insanity of a divisive, embattled earth is scorned. Borders and warring factions are deemed irrelevant if not foolish and self-destructive. "What use are diplomatic games on a spacecraft. We are one. For now at least, we are one. Everything we have up here is only what we reuse and share. We can't be divided, this is the truth. We won't be because we can't be. We drink each other's recycled urine. We breathe each other's recycled air." The warning message contained within ORBITAL is forceful in its simplicity. "The planet is shaped by the sheer amazing force of human want, which has changed everything, the forests, the poles, the reservoirs, the glaciers, the rivers, the seas, the mountains, the coastlines, the skies, a planet contoured and landscaped by want." Harvey captivates the reader within her orbit. This is a must read, stellar novel.