This tale of a sixty-year love affair examines the age-old question of why we love the people we do. A beautiful, charismatic and wildly successful man is adored by a woman. Even as children growing up together in Chicago’s Jewish north side neighborhoods, attending Jewish youth groups and summer camps, he held the power. Never married to each other, but bound throughout their lives by tragedy and friendship, Elliot defined the terms of their relationship, until finally, in old age, the power shifts. Looking at the roles of beauty, insanity, magic, deceit, consolation, sensory fulfillment, and, finally, being seen, Judith Sherman explores why she loved Elliot Pine — a relationship that impinged on every other in her life. In old age, after marriages to others, children, moves to opposite coasts, Judith reflects on how the pattern established in sixth grade was one that persisted their whole lives: a relationship that was a cocktail mix of rivalry and loyalty — shaken with a strong dose of resentment and passion.
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