Rapture
Susan Minot
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Rapture

Susan Minot
Knopf
Hardcover
116 pages
January 2002
rated 3 of 5 possible stars

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Susan Minot's Rapture is a slender web of a tale exploring the very nature of intimacy and abandonement on both a physical and psychological level.

The central premise of the novel is a sexual act between two people fraught with the tension between their past and future. Minot, however, brings into play questions of personality and insecurity, placing the characters inside the greater whole of their relationship. That relationship becomes the core of the novel -- more important than sexual desire. Rapture bounces back and forth in point of view, the male vs. the female, revealing the nature of their knowledge of each other and themselves.

Benjamin, already unhappily engaged, is drawn inexplicably to Kate, and vice-versa, their affair spanning the course of over a year. Their tale is revealed excellently through the use of stream of consciousness narrative and flashback, vividly rendering the characters and their circumstances.

While Minot is, as always, able to render sexual intimacy in a heart-wrenching sort of way, the mere thinness of the novel makes it a bit hard to grasp onto. Its psychological realism, however, is truly what makes it worth reading -- the accurate portrayal of the human mind, its diversions, distractions, and desires.


© 2002 by Kristy Bowen for Curled Up With a Good Book


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