Book Review: The Art of Deception

Title: The Art of Deception 

Author: Peter Martin

Quote: "I think deep down, we would both like kids."

So says young John Greaves. He is so, so wrong. For every minute of the next several months before he really becomes a father, and after, he'll be made to eat those words. 

John is tall, dark--for an Englishman, with black hair and oak-brown eyes--and close enough to handsome. He's married Angela, who has long ash-blonde hair, blue eyes that make him shiver, a lucrative job she enjoys, and a major mental problem. 

Maybe it's just a festering secret from her past, a heavy false-guilt trip. Maybe. 

John and Angie are luckier than many young parents, and know it. Though John was thinking that he'd like kids in a few more years, and Angie absolutely does not want a son, they can afford the baby. Angie's employers want to keep her; that's why they give her paid leave during the difficult stages of pregnancy and for six months after the baby's born. John's employers appreciate his work, too. They have friends and money and a big house. John has two devoted parents; Angie still has one, though her mother's long dead. 

Even so....the main value of this book is to remind young people where to stop the expressions of affection, even after marriage. One of the things Angie doesn't welcome about motherhood is the prospect of "turning into a whale," but she does worse than that. She turns into a real horrorcow. If "horrorcow" is an unfamiliar word to you, Angie fairly well defines it. Throughout the first three-quarters of the book John is the perfect father and Angie is the complete horrorcow. Angie even thinks she wants an abortion, but at the last minute she leaps up screaming "No, no, no." But she continues to punish John for her difficult pregnancy and her being bored at home with a baby she doesn't want to care for. 

Then Angie leaves John with the baby, and the story develops a plot. A friend's wife isn't as happy in her marriage as everyone thinks. The friend doesn't want children. Maybe the wife can move in with John and the baby. But Angie is not the only person John knows who has major mental problems, or even the one with the worst problems. How much danger is John in, and from whom?

I was not able to suspend disbelief in this cautionary tale. Young people should of course be aware that an unplanned baby can ruin their lives, but can any woman read a man's story about how well a man behaves toward a woman who treats him badly without laughing uncharitably? I can't. 

If, however, you are or live with a person between the ages of about fifteen and about thirty-five, and want to remind yourself or whomever of the reasons not to do what makes babies until you're absolutely sure you want babies, you should buy this book.