Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Ed Tarkington

Published by Algonquin on January 5, 2016

I thought only Kazuo Ishiguro could get away with attaching sappy titles to good books, but Ed Tarkington does it with Only Love Can Break Your Heart. On the other hand, Neil Young gave the same sappy title to a great song. Tarkington writes a suitable tribute to Young in an early chapter, the source of the borrowed title as well as the name (Cinnamon Girl) given to a key character.

The novel is set in a rural town in Virginia. It follows the interaction of the Askew family and two other prominent small town families as seen from the standpoint of Richard Askew, known to his half-brother Paul as Rocky. The novel begins when Richard is seven years old. The first pivotal event in his life occurs when Paul is shot in the leg by Brad Culver while Richard and Paul are trespassing on the Culver property. That incident brings Paul’s lush of a mother back to the Askew household, creating the first of multiple triangles (Paul’s mother, Richard’s mother, the boys’ father) that play out during the novel’s course. It also instigates an odd friendship between Brad Culver and Richard’s father.

Richard looks up to Paul, who -- if not quite a juvenile delinquent -- at least qualifies as a troublemaker, a bad boy with James Dean charm. Paul disappears for a while and the story becomes one of small town drama as the three families -- the Askews, the Culvers, and the Bowmans -- intersect. Leigh Bowman (daughter of a judge), Brad’s son Charles, and Paul create one of the novel’s triangles, while Richard has a fling with Charles’ sister Patricia, who provides Richard’s adolescent introduction to the joy and heartache of adult relationships.

The story eventually adds a murder mystery to the plot. The novel’s drama finds parallels in a school play, Equus, in which Richard has the starring role. Yet the story is ultimately about the many facets of love. Richard observes of his father, “Despite his many flaws and failings, the Old Man was never afraid to love, even when it broke his heart.” All of the central characters are touched by love in some way; nearly all experience heartbreak, which seems to be love’s most likely outcome.

It’s fair to call the novel Richard’s coming of age story, but Richard almost makes himself a secondary character, as most of the drama swirls around Paul, Leigh, and the Culver family. The story’s lesson, borrowed from Equus (“Every soul is itself”), is that every person has his or her own unique nature that survives both praise and scorn.

Tarkington’s taut prose is smooth and evocative. Tarkington avoids the language of melodrama while telling a melodramatic story. While Paul doesn’t always seem genuine (he’s awfully nice for a bad boy), the characters in general are adequately developed. The murder is a bit contrived. This isn’t a perfect novel, but there is much about it to admire, including its perspectives on individuality and love.

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