They recite chilly morals: “Grief is for the strong, who use it as fuel for burning.” They are callous, as when reflecting on fireworks at a Fourth of July party: “Doomed people celebrate peace with sky bombs.” Their omnipotence means that nothing is off limits to the reader, in one instance extending even into the mind of a cat. These cold interpolations belong to the ancient narrators invoked in the novel’s title: the Moirai (Fates) and the Erinyes (Furies). Rather than wallowing in the banal realism that would characterize a lesser work of fiction (characters moving from optimism to set-backs, parenthood to infidelity and divorce, somber old age), Fates and Furies is a far darker narrative, made especially ominous by parenthetical voices that interrupt the narrative in spasms to offer brusque commentary, shed light on interior motives, and cast fortunes for our two protagonists, Lancelot (“Lotto”) and Mathilde Satterwhite. I felt exhausted from the outset by the prospects of another study on the vicissitudes of upper middle class Manhattanite matrimony. Despite the considerable critical praise, I approached Lauren Groff’s third novel with some trepidation.
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