Same As It Ever Was: A Novel

“Marriage was trying; marriage was burying the hatchet. But they had not buried any of their hatchets; instead she’d covered the hatchets with […] decorative hand towels and they were both pretending that the hatchets didn’t exist. She felt Mark’s eyes on her sometimes and wondered what he was seeing, if everyone’s marriage ended up like theirs had, two people who’d once been mad for each other stranded on opposite sides of the kitchen, dimly aware of excess […] emotional transgressions, Animaniacs-shaped pasta about to boil over on the stove, trying to remember how it had been before.”

This passage establishes Julia’s feelings as a young mother about her marriage, developing the theme of Love and Sexual Desire in Marriage. The “Animaniacs-shaped pasta about to boil over on the stove” represents how worn-out she feels in caring for her three-year-old son, Ben. Her exhaustion and lack of openness leads her to avoid sharing her emotional state with her husband, which in turn later leads to her affair.

“There has always been a schism, for her, between what she wants to do as a mother and what she actually does; she has never quite trusted her instincts, never quite been able to venture into territory that feels too soft or tender. She has felt, from the moment Mark presented to her the idea of a child, unwieldy, cast in a production for which she hasn’t had adequate time to prepare.”

Julia struggles with her sense of self and identity as a mother, developing the theme of Personal Identity and Motherhood. In this passage, she describes how she feels inadequate in the role of mother. However, viewed objectively and from her children’s perspective, she’s an excellent mother.

“It’s very, very hard, what you’re doing. What I was doing. And you can’t account for it in any mathematical way.”

Helen acts as a foil to Julia in their differing self-conceptions around motherhood, particularly when Julia is in her early thirties. This quote shows how Helen contrasts with Julia. Whereas Julia is wracked with guilt about her failures as a mother, Helen has greater perspective and comforts Julia by expressing an intimate understanding of the challenges in raising children and pointing out that emotions aren’t always logical or “mathematical.”

“She is surprised, frankly, that her son doesn’t seem more terrified by this development; since he was a toddler he’s had a wild imagination for catastrophe.”

This quote thematically exemplifies Transformation of Parent-Child Relationships Over Time. Julia still sees her son, Ben, as a small child with a “wild imagination for catastrophe.” However, Ben has changed and matured over the past 20 years and he’s now confident and capable of taking on big responsibilities, specifically marriage and fatherhood.

“‘Oh,’ she said, and before she knew what she was doing she was kissing him back, and she couldn’t believe—when she pulled away a minute later, ten minutes later, she had no idea how much time had passed, or where her mind had gone while it had—how very, very, very good she’d felt, kissing him, light-headed but alive, so alive that she’d forgotten, while it was happening, how used she’d grown to being half-dead.”

This passage exemplifies the use of third-person limited narration to provide insight into Julia’s state of mind. The language vacillates between what’s happening (Nathaniel kissing her), Julia’s emotional response to it (feeling “alive”), and the connections she forms in those moments (how accustomed she’d become to “being half-dead”).

“It does a mix of things to her, this line, her kid saying my kid, and the sudden awareness that she herself doesn’t exactly fill the bustling shoes of a grandma. Myriad new ways to let down her kid and, now, this.”

When Ben talks to Julia about the upcoming birth of his first child, Julia once again wrestles with her sense of self, underscoring Personal Identity and Motherhood. She must readjust her conception of herself to accommodate a new identity, that of grandmother.

“She wondered if this was what it would look like, the moment she fucked everything up, ruined her life, destroyed her marriage: dead leaves and melting snow, the squeak of a nearby squirrel, and her little boy, sullied by her carelessness.”

In this quote, sensory details help create a vivid portrait of Julia’s typical internal state during stressful moments. When her young son sees Nathaniel with her, she notes everything in her environment and how it relates to her perceived failings as a wife and mother.

“‘You knew I never wanted any of this.’

‘Any of what? What the hell does that mean? And who the hell cares what you wanted, Julia; we’re here now, we’ve already done it, you can’t just decide after the fact that you don’t want to do it anymore.’”

Thematically, this dialogue between Julia and Mark shows how they address the struggles of Love and Sexual Desire in Marriage. Although they love each other, the enormity of the commitment they have made to each other sometimes overwhelms Julia.

“Helen, I love you, she could not say. There have been days, Helen Russo, when I loved you more than I love my own husband.”

Julia’s relationship with Helen inspires her to address her own struggles around motherhood and her sense of self, further building the theme of Personal Identity and Motherhood. However, at this point in the narrative, Julia is unable to express her feelings of appreciation for Helen. Later, Julia is better able to show how much she cares for Helen by bringing her flowers and reconnecting with her.

“She noticed that the vibe in the car had shifted; the fact that he’d seen her naked was now irrelevant, and replaced by the fact that while she wasn’t anywhere near old enough to be his mother, she was expected, both societally and apparently by he himself, to act like it. She wondered a little depressingly if this had anything to do with Nathaniel’s attraction to her in the first place. She became tangibly aware of herself in a way that she hadn’t been in ages, the materiality of her body, its autonomy and actuality, its pathetic transgression.”

This quote describes the moment when Julia realizes that Nathaniel’s desire for her stems partly from his feelings about his mother, Helen. Although she felt that her affair with him was part of establishing her autonomy, she realizes that she can’t escape the label of “mother” after all and that she doesn’t really want to.

“She is moved to call her mother, perhaps, by the kind of retroactive sympathy you can only feel when you become a parent yourself, when you realize how terrible it is possible for your own children to make you feel whether they mean to or not.”

In this quote, Julia reckons with her role as a mother, thematically underscoring Transformation of Parent-Child Relationships Over Time. As a parent, Julia’s perception of Anita shifts: They become more like peers. In facing her challenges as a mother, Julia recognizes the struggles that her mother must have faced.

“Not until Mark came along had she felt extant, and it had been mutual, hadn’t it, the two of them finding each other? One of the greatest gifts of her life, finding him. It’s a miracle, really, that they found each other, that together they strike the balance that they do, that they’ve made it through so much together without—what was it Helen had said, so long ago? Killing themselves, or each other.”

Although Julia struggles to outwardly express her love for her husband, she constantly reflects on their relationship, developing the theme of Love and Sexual Desire in Marriage. Even though they have their low points, their success is evident in their constant efforts to reconnect and rekindle their relationship. This passage exemplifies the discursive mode often found in Julia’s narration, as if she’s having a conversation with herself.

“‘Off she goes,’ he says. ‘Into the wide blue.’

‘I think it’s wild blue,’ she says, and she leans back into his hand, still following with her eyes the floral, feral blur that is Alma: their daughter who had not so long ago been small enough to nap in the ninety-degree crooks between their wrists and their elbows.”

This quote thematically contributes to Transformation of Parent-Child Relationships Over Time. As Alma prepares to go off to university, Julia reflects on how their child was once an infant who was fully dependent on them. This rite of passage is a moment of change, not only for Alma but also for Julia and Mark.

“Meeting Mark had been like finding a beloved old sweatshirt she hadn’t realized she’d lost. He smelled right; their bodies fit peaceably together. Like he’d been there all along.”

Julia recalls how, in the beginning of their relationship, Julia and Mark’s love for one another felt natural and inevitable. The quote highlights the connection between their love and their physical intimacy (“their bodies fit peaceably together”).

“‘I’m doing the best I can,’ she says, but it comes out sounding a little defensive, which undercuts her credibility, which bothers her, because she’s telling the truth, that her trying might not look like other people’s trying but it is nevertheless trying.”

This quote reveals the difference between Julia’s external dialogue and what she shares with the outside world. Instead of verbalizing her entire state of mind, she gets out only the bare minimum to explain her actions. This reluctance to express herself is rooted in her difficult childhood, when her mother similarly withheld the details about why she was unable to prioritize caring for young Julia.

“‘Moving to the suburbs is like getting a face tattoo,’ she said. ‘You’re committing in perpetuity to a certain kind of lifestyle.’

‘It’s not a lifestyle,’ he said. ‘It’s just a place.’”

This dialogue between Julia and Mark reveals Julia’s initial reluctance to embrace a suburban lifestyle and illustrates Mark’s myopia. He doesn’t understand why she might feel skeptical about conforming to a married suburban life. She sees it as a threat to her personal identity because she views herself as independent, and she never entirely stops grappling with her underlying skepticism, even after they move.

“She thought she’d stopped missing Helen—she had forced herself to stop missing Helen, all those years ago—but it turns out the need has been there all along, drowned out by her children and her colleagues, supplemented by her new friendships but there nonetheless, waiting in the wings. And now that she’s had another taste of it—Helen’s laugh, Helen’s contemplative nodding, Helen’s still-extraordinary taste in wine—she wonders how she survived without it.”

This passage shows how running into Helen in the grocery store (the incident that begins the novel) sparks Julia’s reconsideration of her life and choices. She recognizes how much Helen means to her and realizes that Helen was a model and a support for her own life. In this moment, Julia knows their relationship can easily overcome her long-ago transgression with Nathaniel.

“She has to admit that it feels better to be this person, the person who is trying and succeeding, the person with an intact family she never wants to lose. Her son is getting married in less than two weeks and her daughter is off to live in a dorm that, who’s to say, could have almost been designed by Mies van der Rohe and her dog is unhealthily obsessed with her and she and her husband will be just fine in their empty nest; nobody is at risk of running out of what they need to coexist and it will remain that way so long as she doesn’t burn it to the ground.”

Julia articulates her acceptance of herself and her domestic life, resolving the theme of Personal Identity and Motherhood. Helen, once a young mother herself, recognized Julia’s tendency for self-destruction. That threat is still present “so long as she doesn’t burn it to the ground” (an allusion to the Talking Heads song “Burning Down the House”), but Julia no longer feels overwhelmed or threatened by it, marking significant personal growth.

“The familiar indignation, the fact that her mother saw fit to come breezing in for just long enough to let it register how long she’d been gone, and the fresh emptiness she’d leave in her wake.”

Throughout the novel, Julia’s struggle in her relationship with Anita is apparent. Anita has a tendency to be absent from Julia’s life. This statement expresses Julia’s feelings about how her mother makes her feel, but she’s barely able to share these feelings with Mark.

“She was willing herself; she was halfway there. That would be her concession, and Mark’s would be to pretend it wasn’t a thing she was doing for him. ‘Mark,’ she said. ‘Trust me, please.’

And after a moment he kissed her, and after that they began to make over their life, a series of cosmetic changes that they hoped would—God, please, let them—permeate the surface.”

In this critical scene, Julia and Mark agree to have a second child despite his doubts after her infidelity. This affirmation of their connection thematically resolves Love and Sexual Desire in Marriage, and their kiss symbolizes recommitment.

“I am also sorry, she should say, for absolutely fucking everything. She should tell him what he means to her, that that’s the reason she is the way she is, the reason she does all the things she does, some half-baked back-door bragging defense, I just love my kids too much!, but it’s true, to a degree. She should enumerate all the times he’s saved her without even realizing it, […] made her happy when nobody else could; she should tell him how sorry she is for abandoning him at Serenity Smiles that afternoon, and for all the other times she’s abandoned him since then whether she was aware of it or not.”

Julia’s reflections illustrate her coming to terms with her changing role in her kids’ lives, thematically resolving Transformations of Parent-Child Relationships Over Time. Although she appreciates the new parity she finds with Ben when he apologizes to her, she still reflects on her mistakes when he was young and how much he meant to her then and still does now. Emphasizing the complexity of this web of emotions are the series of clauses connected by commas and semicolons.

“Had Alma saved her life? No. But also, sort of.”

In this quote, Julia articulates an aspect of how she has integrated her sense of self and her identity as a mother, further illustrating the thematic resolution of Personal Identity and Motherhood. She feels that her daughter, Alma, has “saved her life” by grounding her again and redirecting her course.

“She is surprised to feel tears in her eyes; it’s plausible, of course, that Anita never told Marshall what happened because she’s embarrassed by it, but it feels more—she does know her mother; she knew her so well for so long—like an act of loyalty to Julia, not passing on to anyone else that dark time in their shared history.”

In this significant moment, Julia learns to empathize and identify with her mother as a person who faced difficult choices but loved and tried to protect her as best she could. This signifies the Transformation of Parent-Child Relationships Over Time.