Kate Evans’ new novel, Complementary Colors, demonstrates how human interactions often prove messier and more complex than anything we might describe through art theory or a color wheel. Narrator Gwen Sullivan and her assortment of family members, lovers, and friends puzzle their way through various combinations of heterosexual, same-sex, and other types of relationships, all of which seem equally fragile and confusing.
Yet, through Gwen’s coworker Lucy’s continuing to work through her differences with her husband, through her childhood friend Kaye’s joy over her impending motherhood and through everyone’s support for Vanessa while her lover Theresa passed away from breast cancer, Evans suggests that real interpersonal connection may still be possible and still worth fighting for. Through the words of Walt Whitman, she encourages people not to fear merging with each other and the rest of the universe.
Evans reflects the best of her craft when describing random, particular moments. These delicate turns of phrase let readers glimpse the aliveness of stars and streetlights during Gwen’s drive home from her first poetry class, smell the ocean’s salt spray when she claims her independence in Santa Cruz, cringe when strange men approach in bars simply to settle foolish macho bets, feel the rough metalwork and view the literal ‘complementary colors’ on display in the local art studio, and giggle knowingly as she and Lucy make faces towards each other at the tutoring center, bonding over shared quests for intimacy from the men they love. Complementary Colors strikes a great balance most of the time among action, dialogue, and internal reflection, although some of the paragraphs dealing with issues such as past political campaigns could be trimmed and the same points expressed more implicitly.
In a way similar to the first Bridget Jones movie, Complementary Colors perceptively captures its characters’ very human awkwardness and insecurities, and encourages readers to think and sympathize. We feel for Gwen as she attempts to find space for herself in her own home, and as she observes her boyfriend Daniel interact with his female lab partner and wonders, even with her degree in literature, if she can ever measure up when it comes to class and intellect. And we cheer as Lucy finally properly disposes of the many opinionated self-help books her therapists insist she buy and read to save her marriage, and gathers the courage to value herself even while staying with her husband. Through her female characters’ self-doubts, Evans points out and critiques how our society often subtly discredits femininity as weak, inadequate, and silly.
And, through showing Gwen’s interactions with her family members and her married friends, Evans depicts the worries and frustration many young women feel over pressure to live up to society’s conflicting expectations concerning career success, motherhood, tradition, independence and love and family. It isn’t easy to have to make life choices, but the alternative, tackling everything at once, can be difficult too. And Evans’ intriguing minor characters, including first-time mom Kaye and her alpaca farm, and Rose, the lesbian woman minister Jamie loves, but leaves for Gwen, all represent varied attempts at forging a workable destiny.
Love and life are confusing and complex for more than just straight women, and Daniel himself faces familial and professional pressure, as his colleagues land mentions in prestigious science journals before his papers get accepted. Friends, business partners, and former lovers Cat and Jamie must cope with a mixture of mutual support, gratitude and jealousy. Evans deftly links these personal feelings and vignettes in with her broader social observations. Birth control pills, election campaigns, people-watching episodes, even fireplaces and traffic lights, provide segues into social commentary, and we observe how broad societal trends directly play out in people’s lives.
Still, Complementary Colors left me with a feeling of unease. Characters seemed to drift among various casual relationships, living arrangements, careers, and interests, all in the search for self-discovery and personal fulfillment. And, without denying some of their legitimate reasons for discontent, many of their personal journeys seemed still incomplete by the novel’s end. Simply entering a new relationship, or leaving an old one, or even traveling, rarely settles the question of one’s identity by itself – one has to consciously choose that and not wait for it to occur automatically. I was waiting for Gwen and others to find not only true love, but a sense of purpose and security, something worth doing and living for above and beyond themselves. And, even with people’s tentative steps towards this type of discovery, such as Gwen’s decision to celebrate poetry’s transformative power by working in a bookstore, I was not sure they had reached that point, or that their new and future relationships would be satisfying.
Kate Evans’ Complementary Colors was released last year by Vanilla Heart Publishing, www.vanillaheartbooksandauthors.com She’s also a poet and professor of English and Comparative Literature at San Jose State University – and loves dogs, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman. You may find her blog online at www.beingandwriting.blogspot.com