Novella Review: THE MOST

It doesn't require a lot of pages for a novel to make a big impact. And that is the case with this novella, The Most by Jessica Anthony. It tells the story of a marriage on the rocks with such power I felt like I was being drawn into "the most", a cunning strategy used in tennis games, right along with the characters.

The Most takes place on a single day in November of 1957 in Newark, Delaware where a young family lives in an apartment after recently moving from Rhode Island. Virgil and Kathleen have reached an impasse in their marriage. Sputnik II has been launched and the first live being propelled into space is an unfortunate dog, Laika, a doomed "Muttnik." The weather is unseasonably warm.

Slowly over the whole story we learn the backstory of each person in the unhappy couple. Kathleen was a good tennis player in college, she decided to marry rather than turn pro. Virgil was a handsome man with little ambition who easily got a job without trying. Neither of them have been faithful to their partner. On this hot day in November Kathleen begs off going to church and while the family is gone, slips into her old, red bathing suit and hops into the apartment's swimming pool. She stays in the pool all day, no one can talk her out.

At one point in the story we learn when Kathleen is a teenager her parents hired a man, Billy, to give her tennis lesson. It is Billy who teaches her about "the move." It essentially traps your opponent at the net before releasing a bomb to the back court. The strategy has not only given the novel it's name but is a tactic employed to break the marital impasse, one designed to force Virgil to show his hand.

M. Praseed, writing for the Chicago Review of books, calls The Most an "incredibly nuanced conflict", a nearly perfect book in just under 150 pages. And H. McAlpin, reviewing the book for NPR, says it deserves to be a classic. I'm not sure I'd go that far but I do think it would make a good book to use to teach how to write a very tight novel. McAlpin also points out the theme of "bridges" in the book. I missed the theme on my read through but admired the references to bridges when she mentioned them.

I liked and admired The Most. I found myself thinking a lot about the differences in our society from the 1950s to today. I think that is another point which elevates the book to the near classic level.

My rating: 4 stars

-Anne