Elizabeth
Berg's great strength is creating characters whom readers identify with
and care for. Samantha Morrow, the protagonist of Open House, is very
sympathetic: Not only is she unaffected, warm, and genuine, her husband
has left her and their 11-year-old son.
Sam understandably is reeling at first and engages in uncharacteristic
behavior, like running up a $12,000 charge at Tiffany's. (Of course,
she thought soon-to-be-ex David would pay for it.) She makes changes
that her mother isn't so sure about but that seem reasonable given that
she needs money: taking in boarders and going to work for a temp
agency. She tries dating and is humiliated. Meanwhile, a man whom
Sam doesn't at first see as a romantic partner — the
overweight and sexually inexperienced King (yes, that's his given name)
— is becoming one of her most significant supports.
We want Sam to land on her feet, but it could be argued that love saves
her too soon and too predictably. Furthermore, King turns into a more conventional hero than he originally seemed; he's shedding pounds
rapidly and discloses that he has a degree from MIT but prefers to work
in temp jobs. But this fault-finding may be beside the point; one of
the pleasures of reading Berg is knowing that her heroines are going to
be all right.
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