Cleaving: The Story of a Marriage - Hardcover

Covington, Dennis; Covington, Vicki

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0865475482 ISBN 13: 9780865475489

Publisher: North Point Pr, 1999

Synopsis

Writing in alternating voices, the authors reveal the secret to their marriage--a union fraught with such problems as infidelity and alcoholism, which were overcome by hard work and a conscious effort to root their lives in the world outside of their lives. Tour.

About this title

About the Author

Dennis Covington is the author of two novels and the nonfiction book Salvation on Sand Mountain, which was a 1995 National Book Award finalist. Vicki Covington is the author of four novels, most recently The Last Hotel for Women. Both have received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. They live in Birmingham, Alabama.

From the Back Cover

cleave (klev), v.i., cleaved; cleaving. 1. to adhere closely; stick; cling (usually fol. by to). 2. to remain faithful (usually fol. by to): to cleave to one's principles.

cleave (klev), v.t., cleft or cleaved or cloven, cleaving. 1. to split or divide by or as by a cutting blow, esp. along a natural line of division, as the grain of wood. 2. to make by or as by cutting: to cleave a path through the wilderness. 3. to cut off; sever: to cleave a branch from a tree.

From the Inside Flap

Marriage is like a rainforest. You have the canopy and the understory. The story of a marriage contains all that grows in the canopy, all that is visible from an aerial, or public, view. The understory of a marriage is the place where other things thrive. It is in the understory that we struggle, fight, and conceive. It is the place where we toss things, where compost is made, where anything can grow, including forgiveness. --from Cleaving

Told in the authors' alternating voices, Cleaving is both the story and the understory of a marriage, unique in its particulars but universal in its resonance. Childhood acquaintances, Vicki and Dennis meet again in their twenties and wed. Like many of their generation, they "promise each other nothing" and get more than they'd bargained for: alcoholism, infidelity, infertility, uncertainty. Gradually, tumult gives way to sobriety, parenthood, and meaningful work, but a sense of yearning remains. In a quest to root themselves in the larger world, they embark on a mission to hand-drill water wells in Central America, attempting to slake a spiritual thirst by addressing a practical need.

Yet even this turns out to be part of the story--the visible, overarching canopy--of the marriage. The understory--and the triumph of this haunting book, which succumbs to neither sentimentality nor cynicism--is its portrayal of the unpredictable eddying of passion through the institution that enshrines but cannot contain it.

Reviews

Collaborating for the first time, journalist Dennis Covington (Salvation on Sand Mountain) and his novelist wife, Vicki Covington (The Last Hotel for Women), attempt to address the dangers and joys of matrimonial life. In a "he said, she said" format, they write of having been childhood acquaintances before marrying in their rocky, alcoholic 20s; of trying to shield their children from their marital indiscretions; and of becoming spiritually impassioned volunteer diggers of wells in Central America. Both spouses write with simple grace, providing evocative details that sum up their experiences. But while some passages are remarkably insightful about the institution of marriage, much of the book is dedicated to their individual hand-wringing over the consequences of their affairs in what they had agreed would be an open relationship. In a particularly forced analogy, Vicki writes that "marriage is like a rain forestAit is in the understory that we struggle, fight and conceive." In the Covington marriage, it seems, it's always monsoon season. The couple triumphs over alcoholism and infertility, but the writing of each projects an edge of narcissism and selfishness, with blame easily assigned and credit only grudgingly granted. Later, when the Covingtons yearn for spiritual enlightenment, they take up well digging, finding water on their own property and in poverty-stricken El Salvador. Both of them imbue the simple action of boring into the earth with enormous significance as they try to find not just God, but also justification for hurting their other lovers. Although the book draws some power from its confessional style, it founders as a source of wisdom about marriage. Agent, Amanda Urban.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In a bizarre mixture of joint autobiography and sociology, occasionally complemented by detailed instructions on well-drilling, the Covington writer/spouse duo rehashes about 20 years of their stormy, messy married life. The tale of Vicki and Dennis offers no theme of general interest and is perhaps just as trivial or as original as the life story of any random passer-by. The difference here lies in a relatively sophisticated narrative technique that alternates the voices of husband and wife, each of whom in turn provides an individual interpretation of the same events. Vicki's account is emotionally charged, while Dennis sticks to a more balanced and precise journalistic manner. Natives of Alabama, where they wind up again after several brief sojourns elsewhere, the couple have had a lifestyle mlange of hippie and pseudobohemian, which seems to defy their parents' basic southern values. Drugs, alcoholism, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, and adultery, punctuated by a mnage ... trois with one of Dennis's fellow college professors, mix to form a pretty nauseating cocktail of the Covingtons' earlier married life. Just when Vicki's maternal instinct awakens, she is afflicted with an ectopic pregnancy, years of infertility treatment, eventual pregnancy by her husband's buddy, and a subsequent abortion. She finally gives birth to two of Dennis's daughters, their literary careers take off, and their life normalizes to a certain extent, although extramarital affairs remain omnipresent. The Covingtons' return to the Southern Baptist Church appears as abrupt and unconvincing as their pathetic urge to drill water wells in El Salvador to satiate their ``spiritual thirst.'' The final chapters of the book feature frequent quotations from the Bible and pop songs, melodramatic talk of forgiveness, and sadomasochistic confessions the two make to each other about their respective lovers. One hopes that the story of the Covingtons' ``crimes and misdemeanors'' will prove therapeutic for the authors, as the readers will find it neither edifying nor amusing. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Adultery. Abortion. Alcoholism. Reading the Covingtons' painfully honest narrative of their tumultuous 20-year marriage is a bit like slowing down to look at a car wreck--gruesomely compelling. Yet this is not your typical dysfunctional family memoir; it is also a moving quest for spiritual redemption. (LJ 5/1/99)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

" Cleaving" is an extraordinary choice for a title of a book on a marriage. To cleave means both to cling and to split, and the contradictory nature of the definition serves this book well. Dennis (Salvation on Sand Mountain, 1995) and Vicki (The Last Hotel for Women, 1996) Covington, in alternate chapters, recount their history. Each has a singular point of view and voice, and as could only be expected, tells the story of this relationship a little differently. They are two people with deep and abiding passions and talents that spill out into all aspects of their lives. Even taking into account the different points of view, this marriage can be seen as a nest of contradictions: sacred and profane; sterile and fertile; faithful and marked by betrayal. Each holds deep fundamentalist beliefs and yet exhibit what could only be called unholy behavior. The outcome, which meaning of cleaving will the reader be left with, is not certain until the end. As a love story this is both disturbing and exhilarating, but it leaves the reader wanting to spend more time with these very honest and vital people. Danise Hoover

Edition details

• Publisher: North Point Pr
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865475482
• ISBN 13: 9780865475489
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 213