All He Ever Wanted – Anita Shreve
In the early years of the twentieth century, Nicholas Van Tassel is a serious, ambitious young professor of English at a small New Hampshire college. One winter night, while staying at a hotel, he is caught up in a fire and, amid the chaos, sees a woman whose composure and beauty captivate him. She is Etna Bliss, and from that moment Nicholas is determined to make her his wife.
All He Ever Wanted, by Anita Shreve, is narrated by Nicholas himself years later, as an old man traveling by train to his sister’s funeral. Looking back over his life, he tells the story of his courtship of Etna, who is reserved, intelligent and independent, and who agrees to marry him while making clear that she does not love him as he loves her.
Nicholas’s account reveals his obsessive love, his jealousy and his ambition to rise at the college, where he competes for the position of dean. As the marriage continues, he becomes convinced that Etna is keeping a secret from him, and his attempts to uncover it lead to consequences that affect his career, his family and Etna herself.
Shreve uses Nicholas’s formal, self-justifying voice to create a portrait of a man who does not fully understand himself or the woman he married, and readers gradually see more than he does. The novel explores love, possession, pride and the limited choices available to women of the time.
Elegant and absorbing, All He Ever Wanted is a rewarding read for fans of historical and literary fiction and of Anita Shreve’s work.
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