Nobody is perfect.
Author Jess Walter clearly knows this, and not only crafts characters who all have their own issues, but introduces them with those faults. Instead of setting up a pattern in which those people are superhuman until proven otherwise, he leads character introductions with imperfections.
It is only fitting then that his novel is called “Beautiful Ruins.”
In this story, Walter shows how his characters work to overcome their individual and collective challenges, making some beauty out of their ruins.
One of the main characters is film producer Michael Deane, whose first impression on people is a “man constructed of wax,” Walters writes. “After all these years, it may be impossible to trace the sequence of facials, spa treatments, mud baths, cosmetic procedures, lifts and staples, collagen implants, outpatient touch-ups, tannings, Botox injections, cyst and growth removals, and stem-cell injections that have caused a seventy-two-year-old man to have the face of a nine-year-old Filipino girl.”
This is a man of supreme self-confidence, self-importance and vanity — qualities that end up affecting the lives of every one of the other main characters. It is his decisions and ideas that alter the life of aspiring actress Dee Moray, the child she later has, the small-town inn keeper Pasquale who houses Moray for a while and falls in love with her, the writer who also stays at the hotel and for whom Dee falls in love, and finally, Deane’s assistant later in life. Just a few decisions change all of their lives — some for the better, others not.
Walter tells this story in a pretty fascinating way, using changes to fill in back stories while also pushing each one of the characters forward in time. The two naturally eventually catch up, but it takes stories told through plays and movie pitches to get them there.
Along the way, the characters reveal so much that is deep inside of them, and by extension all of us. When Pasquale first sees Dee, a beautiful American actress at his why-would-anyone-come-here part of the world, he is completely taken by the experience:
“Then she smiled, and in that instant, if such a thing were possible, Pasquale fell in love, and he would remain in love for the rest of his life — not so much with the woman, whom he didn’t even know, but with that moment.”
Don’t we all have those moments, those times we think back on and remember with complete fondness no matter what has happened with the pieces involved since then?
Of course, life isn’t always easy, and in these “ruins” there is plenty of doubt and longing for something they can’t — or don’t think they can — have.
Walter tells a story of Pasquale as a kid on the beach seeing a woman drop a ring. After some hesitation, and only after seeing his mother looking on, Pasquale does the right thing and chases the woman down to return it. Later in his life, he gains even more perspective with more experience of his own desires and losses:
“Pasquale saw now what she meant — how much easier life would be if our intentions and our desires could always be aligned.”
And yet, as Dee describes after first reading a sad story by her later husband-writer, just knowing that other people are going through something similar, or at least have similar feelings, can make your own problems feel more manageable.
“You find this story sad in my hotel?” Pasquale asked. “Oh, no, it’s very good,” she said. “It has a kind of hopelessness that made me feel less alone in my own hopelessness. Does that make sense?”
Yup.
I read this book as part of a monthly book club at the TV station where I used to work. They call it “A Book and a Cook,” and I’m pretty jealous we didn’t have it around when I was there. The weekend morning crew (my peeps) led a Facebook discussion about the novel last weekend, and soon will be airing a Skype interview they did with the author. The “cook” portion involves a chef who whips up a dish inspired by the story. What more could you want in life?