The Remedy for Love

August 11, 2014
Roorbach’s latest (after Life Among Giants) begins on the eve of the first big snowstorm of the season in the woods of Maine, with smalltown defense lawyer Eric waiting in line behind a raggedly dressed, strikingly thin young woman with matted hair who is counting change to pay for her paltry pile of groceries. Eric feels “something rumbling inside him,” impelling him to act. Spotting her struggling with bags in the parking lot, he offers her a lift, and this act of kindness feels so good—and alien—to him after a particularly bad year that he turns up unbidden at the door of the small riverside cabin in which she’s squatting, convinced that she is now his responsibility. This view is not shared by “Danielle, for now,” as she warily introduces herself. Predictably, they are trapped by the storm, woefully underprepared, and forced to weather it together. Danielle’s careening and unpredictable personality seems an odd fit for Eric’s mellow character. Roorbach does little to subvert the classic male rescue fantasy.

Starred review from August 15, 2014
A closely observed meditation on isolation and loneliness "in a world in which no social problem was addressed till it was a disaster." Eric is a middle-aged "small-town lawyer with no cases," struggling with separation and lost love, when he lays eyes on a young woman in the supermarket line who's just such a disaster. Danielle is a hot mess brimming with suspicion and hostility, to say nothing of being hobbled by a bad sprain and no immediate prospects. When Eric helps her with her groceries-and then, episode by episode, with bits of her torn-up life-young Danielle responds mostly with cagey bitterness, dismissing the train wreck that is her existence with tossed-off observations like "[p]eople are complicated." Yes, they are, and Danielle-if that is her real name, for, as she tells him, it's "Danielle, for now"-is more complicated than most. Set against the backdrop of a howling Maine blizzard ("Storm of the Century, that's what I heard," says Eric. "Of course that's what they always say"), Roorbach's story never takes an expected or easily anticipated turn. Eric makes a project of Danielle, a project that brings some glimmer of meaning into his life. Danielle, in turn, resents being made into said project. She's an exceedingly strange bird, but strange is better than nothing-maybe, for Danielle is harboring enough secrets to keep a National Security Agency agent busy for years. "I'm sure I lied," she tells Eric, simply, in one typical exchange. And so she has, though she has her reasons, which we learn as Roorbach's superbly grown-up love story unfolds. Lyrical, reserved and sometimes unsettling-and those are the happier moments. Another expertly delivered portrait of the world from Roorbach (Life Among Giants, 2012, etc.), that poet of hopeless tangles.

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October 15, 2014

As the snowstorm of the century approaches, Eric, a small-town Maine lawyer in a messy separation from his wife, gives in to a charitable impulse to help Danielle, a young and basically homeless woman he meets in line at the grocery store. He helps pay for the groceries, then offers her a ride. Danielle asks to be dropped off on the highway just outside of town. Eric again takes pity on her, helping bring the groceries down a steep hill to a cabin on the river and getting more firewood. Danielle is suspicious and hostile, threatening retaliation from her army ranger husband. Eric leaves but finds his car has been towed with his phone inside and returns to the cabin. As the storm rages and the danger increases, Eric and Danielle must find ways to reach each other in order to survive. VERDICT A gripping tale spun out of somewhat unlikely circumstances, Roorbach's third novel (after 2012's Life Among Giants) is highly readable, suspenseful, and well written. While infused with the flavor of rural Maine, the story transcends place and stereotypes and gets at the core of human love and grief. Recommended for all readers of contemporary fiction.--Nancy H. Fontaine, Norwich P.L., VT

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2014
In his latest novel, the author of Life among Giants (2012) moves to a smaller scalea snowed-in Maine cabin where two strangers are stranded. Small-town attorney Eric noticed the slovenly Danielle in the checkout line, unable to afford her paltry groceries. His initial offer to help her home turns into assistance to prepare for the coming storm, which eventually leaves him marooned as well. While Eric's intentions are a bit muddledas Danielle notes, his persistence in forcing his help upon her is creepybeing stuck together forces them to confront their pasts. Its lofty, Thoreau-based title aside, the novel spins a straightforward yarn that's part survival tale and part romance, complete with surreptitious glances and half-articulated desires. Roorbach does well in the limited space, keeping the narrative tight without being claustrophobic. While Eric is largely predictable, there's more depth to the fierce and mercurial Danielle than meets the eye, which gives their interactions spark as the storm rages outside and something even more powerful develops within.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)