REVIEW: Fates and Furies

A novel by Laura Groff

Every story has more than one side to it — particularly marriages, which is central to Laura Groff’s Fates and Furies. However, Groff does not intend to tell a story about everyone’s marriage. No, for Groff, Fates and Furies is truly only about Mathilde and Lancelot, who goes by the nickname Lotto.

Written in two parts, Fates tells the story of Lotto and his marriage to Mathilde; Furies is Mathilde’s point-of-view. Lotto’s story paints him as the golden boy who was born to be a star — fated if you will. Lotto yearns for the spotlight, for recognition of his greatness. He wants to be loved by everyone, and be seen as the classic hero of his own story. Whereas Mathilde seems content to play the steadfast wife who supports him away from the spotlight. Mathilde is never forthcoming with information about her and is often described as cold, acting as very much the yang to Lotto’s yin.

But as the point of view shifts, so does the story. The frenetic denouement, with more than a couple of twists in it, winds readers down an ever-evolving emotional rollercoaster — at times ensnarled with fury, other moments wringing one’s hands in sadness or maniac at the levels of manipulation between the major players.

But what needs to be said is how Groff so masterfully accomplishes the storytelling of this novel. The prose is achingly beautiful, so intelligently constructed that almost every sentence makes you take pause in wonder. Groff deserves every bit of recognition she has received for Fates and Furies.

— Melissa Tunstall, Edgar Allan Poe Branch Library, Sullivan’s Island, S.C.

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