Book Review: Available

12/05/2021

Book Review | Available by Laura Friedman Williams

I love a memoir. I really do. In fact, I have a list of favourite memoirs you’re welcome to take your pick from if you click right here! When reading this type of non-fiction I spend most of my time oscillating between feeling giddy that I’m being given so much insight into someone’s life and cringing at the thought of ever putting myself out there to the same degree. With fiction you’re able to seamlessly blend reality and imagination to produce some kind of truth without the reader knowing quite how much of the actual you they’ve encountered. With memoir, so we assume, everything is as close to truth as it can be.

This is particularly relevant in Laura Friedman Williams’ Available because it’s about her rediscovering her sex life in the wake of her husband cheating on her, followed by their divorce. By this point Friedman Williams is in her forties and what seems to begin as a way to make herself feel a little better becomes a bona fide adventure in sex. It’s not until she begins telling her friends about her encounters that they encourage her to start writing everything down and then, later, to write a book. There’s a section right near the start where Friedman Williams describes talking to her mother about deciding whether or not to go ahead and write this book. She covers the potential embarrassment of sharing this information with the world, the fear that her kids or perhaps her father might pick it up for a read. In turn her mother, who she says she’d hoped would talk her out of the idea, persuades her to go ahead. There are moments while reading when I think Yeah, go girl! It’s fantastic to read about a woman - and the men she’s with - in her forties - and older - enjoying an exciting sex life. It’s great to read about a woman who feels like she’s given much of her life over to her husband and kids getting the opportunity to find what she enjoys again. But there are also moments where I cringe, where I realise I know more about her body and experiences than I do about many of my closest friends, that I’ve been given this information so freely. I also think it’s flagged up the more prudish side of my nature, the side that echoes (mostly) older generations’ opinions that this stuff should be private, that sex shouldn’t be pursued quite so aggressively, that hooking up with two men on the same day is outrageous. If anything though I quite liked that it was all at odds with my personal feelings, that I continually felt uncomfortable and was forced to confront that rather than giddily gliding along on her adventures.

This is a book about sex and dating after divorce, and although it delves pretty deeply into these, the author also shows us her relationship with her soon-to-be ex-husband as well as documenting the fall out of the break-up on their children. We see tears, tantrums, attempts to hang out as a ‘family unit’ at important events, therapy sessions, emergencies and the constant support of her group of female friends. All of this information is pertinent as what Friedman Williams is really trying to navigate is the intersection of being a mother and being a person in her own right. She claims she was perfectly happy in her marriage, that being a mother is her most important role and the life they’d built allowed her to always put that first. Post break up she feels guilt for wanting to explore these other facets of herself and I really felt for her, impressed at how tenaciously she worked to find a respectable balance.

OK so, the meaty part of this book is exactly what’s euphemistically suggested by the juicy peach emblazoned upon the front cover. There is sex, there is a lot of it and there’s quite a lot of detail. The men Friedman Williams sleeps with are mostly referred to by number (#1, #2 etc.) but we do usually also learn their names and a little about them. I’m not sure whether the numbering system is just to help us keep track of where we are in her sexual timeline or if it’s there to simplify the encounters that aren’t as successful as the others. It might even simply be a nod to the way in which her journey begins as a sort of challenge to herself. The appetite that the author has for sex, particularly as she approaches her first conquest, felt in many ways like the kind of libidinous drive we attribute more to men. Indeed, most of the partners she writes about also comment on it, either delighted by it or in fact a little put off, #5 tells her, ‘I was really surprised the first time we had sex by how quickly you moved. I was put off by it, if we’re being honest.’ Friedman Williams is ‘taken aback, seeing now that what I had thought was a sexy, bold play was interpreted by him as aggressive and unseemly’. Everyone, and women in particular, is raised with certain beliefs about sex, what’s appropriate, what’s dignified, what will make sometime value you as a person and not just a sex object. Many of the ways that Friedman Williams behaves after her divorce would fall into a camp more in line with #5’s opinion and yet why? Everyone is an adult, everyone appears to be getting what they want and having a good time! There’s one moment in the book however where I do question a decision she makes that feels more like something I might have tried when I was a teenager. Even while I respect her for sharing it truthfully, and even though again no-one seemed negatively impacted by it, I must admit I do feel some discomfort.

It’s worth noting that Friedman Williams seems to have an extremely high hit rate with her sexual encounters. If the dates she shares in the book are really the only ones she goes on then, more often than not, both she and the man are attracted enough to each other to have sex. And the sex, even when it’s disappointing, still seems to be pretty good! She orgasms without fail, the phrase ‘toe-curling’ is often used and everyone seems pretty satiated afterwards. It surprised me because I don’t think that’s the experience of most women. For a start, most women do not orgasm through penetration alone, first-time sexual encounters are not often feted for being earth-shatteringly, compatibly fantastic and if I was entering near-strangers’ homes I’m not sure I’d be as relaxed as she seems to be. I have to assume however that these genuinely are her (very delightful) experiences because, when something does go wrong, she’s just as honest about that. Her encounter with #2 seems almost entirely driven by her, with the man playing a hopeful but nervous role in a hook-up that is ultimately a bit of a mess. It’s the darker, more uncomfortable meeting with a man called Kevin who manipulates the date and behaves in an emotionally detached way that I thought she wrote about extremely well. In the middle of a streak of pleasant encounters, Friedman Williams ends up at the home of a man who instigates sex she doesn’t really want but has anyway. It’s a messy situation. In no way does he threaten her and she’s well aware that she entered his home out of choice. But the way he’s behaved up to this point also gives her pause to wonder quite how much he cares about how she feels or what she wants. ‘Sex’ she writes ‘has been purely fun and joyous and liberating and toe-curling and energizing and fulfilling and transcendent these past two months, but now the ugly side of it is lashing its forked tongue at me: asymmetry of power, physical vulnerability, fear, mistrust, revulsion.’ Thought I’m not pleased the author had this encounter, the reminder that sex and humans have the ability to hurt acts as a reminder of why her personal journey is, in many ways, extremely brave.

Many of the sex scenes could be right out of a romance novel and, though intriguing and voyeuristic, it feels strange to imagine meeting this woman and to know her so intimately. I was more intrigued by her experiences of dating when the initial burst of sexual experimentation waned and these relationships became more serious. In particular I was struck by Friedman Williams’ attempts to work out what she wanted from a relationship, now that marriage, financial stability or starting a family were no longer considerations. The realisation that she could redefine what she wanted was joyful to see and how she communicated this to the partner we leave her with at the end of the book felt novel, modern and true to herself.

Though the book is full of these moments where consideration is paid to all sides of a situation and complicated issues discussed and navigated clearly, the one aspect that let the writing down for me was the quality of the dialogue. If speech marks hadn’t been used I would often have missed the fact that we’d even moved into speech at all as the tone remained consistent throughout. By this I mean I heard Friedman Williams’ voice rather than that of whoever was speaking and felt no real change in language, grammar, tone or pace. I read a lot of fiction and scripts so I’m hyperaware of the power and joy of dialogue and love to hear whatever’s being said in that person’s unique voice. In a memoir however I don’t think this is a huge concern as, ultimately, the story is the author’s and everything that’s said or done is filtered through her perspective.

I’m not sure what made me pick Available up but I’m glad I did. It hooked me in right from a rather epic first scene and though my attention waned a little in the family-oriented chapters that focus on the discovery of her husband Michael’s affair and the beginning of the breakdown of the marriage itself, I really enjoyed Friedman Williams’ navigation of life after marriage. There’s a moment near the end of the book where she reflects on the life she’s rebuilt for herself and it made me stop and think. There’s a lack of any hugely dramatic struggle in her life, she’s fine financially, her children are mostly happy and healthy and for the most part her co-parenting relationship with her ex is good. It would be easy perhaps to dismiss her emotional struggle, the pain she feels at the destruction of the life she thought she’d have forever, when other women in her position would unlikely have the time she has had to re-discover herself. I think though that there are lessons to be learned from her single-minded focus, her ability to move forward and her willingness to lay herself bare so we can learn from her experiences. The woman at the end of the book is different to the broken-hearted soon-to-be divorcee at the start, and there’s something so impressive about how - to be a bit cliched - she really did make the best of a bad situation.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy.

Available comes out on 10th June 2021. You can pre-order your copy HERE (affiliate link).