review by Norah Vawter

In Lorine Kritzer Pergament’s posthumously published first novel, Triangulations, we meet Susie, a young woman at a crossroads, trying to decide what kind of future she wants, and whether she wants to have children. Triangulations is a quiet family saga spanning generations of women in Susie’s family. It’s a book about memory, identity, and unreliable narratives. But it’s also about women’s bodies and body autonomy. Without being a book about abortion, Triangulations is eerily of this moment, as it examines pregnancy both accidental and deliberate, a woman’s determination to control her future, the relationship between motherhood and career, and men feeling possessive of women’s bodies.

Sadly, Lorine Kritzer Pergament died a year before the publication of Triangulations, her first novel. A winner in the 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Contest, the author is survived by her husband of 48 years, two sons, and six grandchildren. In an unusual choice, the publisher included four short stories at the end of Triangulations.

In 1978, fiction writer Susie lives with her long-term boyfriend Zach, a painter, in Long Island. They exist in a bohemian, intellectual ideal. Susie teaches writing at a local college. Zach works odd jobs but manages to sell paintings to fancy galleries in the city. They have artsy friends and enjoy a peaceful co-existence featuring art, parties, and conversations about things like ballet and Gloria Steinem. But now Zach wants a family. Susie fears she’s not able to “give” Zach the family life he wants because of emotional baggage from her past. When she  goes home to visit her ailing father and get some perspective, she begins an odyssey through her family’s past. She finds old photographs and diary entries that give glimpses into the lives of her mother Sylvie, a 1950s housewife overwhelmed to be pregnant for the third time; her grandmother Fannie, who survives the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire; and her aunt Berta, a musician who battles misogyny and anti-Semitism.

“Susie studied the photo of the pregnant Sylvie and her little girls. They were in the backyard of the house in Milburn. Everyone was coatless, and the grass was that fake green you see in old Kodachrome photos.”

Triangulations relies on a  nontraditional narrative structure where we follow Susie’s thought process and inner storytelling. We see Sylvie, Fannie, and Berta in flashbacks. But the flashbacks show Susie’s imagination of what happened, not necessarily the truth. She’s piecing together these events from evidence like photographs, second-hand conversations, and her own imaginative leaps. It’s even possible that the book we’re reading is the novel Susie is struggling to write. She’s also preoccupied with more recent history, so the book is filled with flashbacks from her own life too. It’s a fascinating narrative style and generally effective, drawing the reader in. We are on this journey along with the character.

Susie is by necessity an unreliable narrator. Not because she’s a compulsive liar or suffering from delusions, but because she’s soul searching. Susie projects her emotional baggage onto her image of her dead mother. At the same time, she defines herself and self-worth by what she imagines her mother did or thought. Susie doesn’t know who she really is, or what she wants. She’s the ultimate unreliable narrator–because we are all unreliable narrators of our own lives. And it’s this subjective, twisty, turny, thoughtful narrative style that makes Triangulations stand out.

“Thinking about the peaceful life they enjoyed, Susie wished they could continue this way without worrying about the next step. She’d been going to counseling sessions for the last six months and had a clearer understanding of her reluctance to have a child, but still couldn’t make the commitment.”

The subject matter of body autonomy and choice is timely and important—and Pergament handles these difficult topics with subtlety. The book feels decidedly feminist to me. It is clear how important Susie’s choice is, and that it belongs to her alone. And yet Susie’s soul-searching never seems pedantic or on the nose. In Zach we see a well-meaning, generally sympathetic man. When he encourages Susie to have kids, he’s encouraging his girlfriend to believe in herself and her abilities. But at the same time, he’s motivated by selfish desires: he needs her to give him the family he desires. Sometimes he seems possessive or entitled, as if he has a right to her body. But whenever Zach or another male character made me uncomfortable or angry during my reading, I felt like I was seeing the products of an unequal society, not a “bad” individual. Zach thinks Susie should give him children because that’s what people do. He just expects his life to follow the status quo, even if he’s a bohemian painter. In Susie we see a woman who doesn’t fit into a simple category or cliché. She’s not staunchly against kids, or deeply troubled, but she struggles to see how motherhood would fit into the life she wants. And yet, part of her does yearn to be a mother. As she mulls over her choice, I’m reminded how important it is for women to make the choice to be pregnant, or not to be pregnant. And to make that choice deliberately and without pressure. Susie is privileged to have the opportunity to work out her feelings and to exercise control over her own life. 

Overall, Triangulations is a beautiful novel—with artful prose, subtle characterization, and great use of the New York setting. Some dialogue feels a bit clumsy and overly direct. Especially at the beginning of the book, the reliance on flashbacks, backstory, and the sheer number of side characters can make the story feel disjointed. I think there are ways the book could have been streamlined. But I also wonder if the muddle is the point. Do we need to be a little frustrated to get the full experience of this narrative? Should we struggle along with Susie? And this brings me back to the true beauty of this novel. It’s not about what happens. It’s about the elegant dance of ideas, as we struggle to decide why whatever happened mattered—and what we’re going to do about it. 

Triangulations is published by the great small press Publerati. You can support local bookstores by finding your copy at Bookshop!

You can also read an interview with the author from 2018, presented by the amazing and local publication Grace and Gravity.

Lorine Kritzer Pergament's stories have appeared in Gargoyle, Bridges, and Penn-Union, as well as the anthology Amazing Graces: More Stories by Washington Area Women Writers, and she was a winner in the 2008 F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Contest. Lorine served as the Book Review Editor of Signature, a publication of the Women's National Book Association, and a member of the WNBA's Great Group Reads panel.

Norah Vawter is DCTRENDING’s local authors editor. She has an M.F.A. in fiction from George Mason and has published in The Washington Post, Memoir Magazine, and The Nassau Review, among others. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son. Follow her on Twitter @norahvawter, where she shares words and works of D.C. area writers every Friday.