All He Ever Wanted: A Novel [Book]

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If you like dark, involving, character-driven tales, pick up this one about a professor at a small New England college at the turn of the last century. The unlikable, perhaps unreliable narrator is writing an account of his obsession with a woman he met by chance, is instantly enthralled with, and ultimately marries.  I didn’t so much enjoy this very well written “memoir” as was possessed by it. As the object of the narrator’s desires, we see the female character only through the narrator’s eyes and she remains enigmatic.  As is Shreve’s modus operandi  there is another interlocking tale written years later called Stella Bain. Perhaps these characters stayed with the author as they did with me.