Book Review: The Marriage of True Minds by Stephen Evans

The Marriage of True Minds by Stephen Evans
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The story of a crossed love that is star to every wandering bark.

Together as husband and wife, Nick Ward and Lena Grant ran a successful boutique law firm in Minneapolis, vanquishing all their legal foes side by side. When Nick’s charmingly erratic behavior finally became too much for Lena, the marriage and the partnership ended. But—like C. K. Dexter Haven and Tracy Lord—it seems that Lena and Nick just can’t quite separate.

Lena works out fiercely, keeps her dates with the boring and conventional Preston Winter, and daily battles on against corporate greed. But Nick’s not doing so well.

Still brilliant and devilishly clever, he is now also almost crazy. He is prone to fantasy and the big gesture, and he engages frantically in guerrilla activism for the sake of animals wild and domestic. Nick doesn’t make plans; he has visions. And eventually his antics put him back into Lena’s hands. While she tries to navigate the legal waters into which he’s thrown them, Nick veers out of her wake and into the midst of a strange set of companions, including Oscar, his psychiatric attendant and Action Comics collector; Ralph and Alice Wilson, the rebellious managers of the city animal shelter; and an aging Russian hound named Wolfram.

My review

The Marriage of True Minds may be one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. Evans sharp ear for dialogue and brilliant characterisation makes this novel an extremely witty and fun read.

The reader is immediately thrust into the magnetic and somewhat dysfucntional relationship between the clever Lena Grant and devishly brilliant/delusional Nick Ward.

Recently divorced, Lena is entrusted with the burden of baby sitting her eccentric ex-husband after he ends up in the psych ward for filling the mayor's pool with ice and live lobsters - making his getaway in a stretch limo. Lena battles the waters of keeping the very blasé Preston Winters happy whilst inevitably keeping Nick out of prison and confronting her feelings once and for all in regards to one extremely 'cracked partnership'.

This minimalist novel cleverly interlaces themes of love, mental health and animal rights into a scintillating narrative where ideals clash with reality.