The Physics of Relationships: A Novel by Chas Halpern #ContemporaryFiction #BookReview for #RBRT

Author: Chas Halpern

Published by Guernica Editions, November 2023

Category: Contemporary Fiction

Lexi is a sixty-year-old widow whose solitary life is thrown into turmoil when a desperate young woman moves in with her, soon followed by the unexpected arrival of her best friend, who has separated from her husband of forty years. The mix of these three very different personalities – a powerful omnivore seeking to live life to the fullest; a sweet, self-denying vegan; and Lexi, a thoughtful, still grieving widow – leads to some surprising (sometimes humorous) situations that force Lexi to re-examine her life. In the physics of relationships, Lexi observes that nature abhors a vacuum. She begins to wonder if she herself has somehow manipulated her circumstances to fill that vacuum…simply to imitate the life she had before the death of her husband.

The Physics of Relationships is told from the first person perspective of Lexi, a widow in her 60s who recently lost her second husband and soul mate after a long illness. She’s trying to navigate life alone but finding it difficult. When her daughter asks her for a favour for a friend, which involves have a non paying lodger for an unspecified length of time, she’s understandably hesitant. Weighing up the pros and cons she decides to invite Danielle, her daughter’s friend, to stay…just for week then she would have to find other accommodation. A week turned into weeks and Lexi began to enjoy Danielle’s company.

Then her best friend, Amy, who was having marital difficulties, asked if she could stay. From being on her own, Lexi found herself with two lodgers, one unassuming, the other a somewhat overbearing self-centred woman on a mission to embrace the single life.

What did I want? How rarely anyone asked me that question. I wasn’t used to thinking deeply about what I wanted. I had taken as my role model the Zen monk who accepted the child he was given. In the same way, I had accepted Amy and Danielle into my life. Or so I told myself. But I also had a suspicion that I somehow encouraged this situation. Perhaps it wasn’t my fate. Perhaps it was what I wanted. After all, I could have said no to Danielle. I could have insisted that Amy leave after a few days. So, what did I want.

The Physics of Relationships is an adult coming of age story with Lexi being forced by circumstances to decide how to move forward now she is no longer a wife, by evaluating her past, hoping to get an insight into how she wants her future to unfold instead of being carried along on the tide of other people’s needs and wants.

Lexi is a convincing protagonist, thoughtful and diplomatic, albeit sometimes frustrating as she falls in with others instead of asserting herself. I enjoyed the flow of the story, following Lexi’s analytical and conflicting thought processes on her past, present and relationships, new and old, how she realises through it all what it is that really makes her happy. A very perceptive and clever novel from a man writing from the perspective of female characters.

Chas was born in Los Angeles, but spent most of his life in the San Francisco Bay Area. He grew up with two older sisters and a single mother. Chas studied political science and French at the University of California, Berkeley. On a year abroad program in Paris, he met his future wife, the artist Pouke. Some years after their marriage, they adopted a multiracial baby daughter who now identifies as queer. Chas attributes his ability to create fully-realized female characters to his life spent surrounded by women he loves and respects.

After a short stint teaching high school French, Chas established himself as a commercial writer and director, specializing in storytelling and humor. Eventually, he turned his skill at storytelling to writing novels. He explains:“I enjoyed my life as a scriptwriter and director, but I always felt creatively constrained by having to meet my corporate clients’ demands and by having to limit myself to storytelling that could be told in ninety seconds or less.”

Chas now lives in Berkeley, California with his wife. He recently finished his seventh novel, A Handful of Clouds, the story of a divorced couple re-examining their relationship.

When not writing, Chas can be found singing baritone opera arias around the house or playing pickup basketball at the local park.