Sally develops polio and slowly deteriorates over time, challenging Larry’s expectation for a life of intellectual and creative labor. Larry works foremost on his writing passion while abstractly attempting to secure tenure and dealing with familial sickness and disability. Neither couple’s struggle improves linearly or follows classical plot structures rather, they weave through and strengthen their core narrative threads, modeling the rhythm and synthesis of real life. The tensions in both couples’ relationships are the core motifs in the novel, growing more complicated through each successive flashback. Meanwhile, Sid’s own passion moves outside of academia into writing poetry he eventually feels he has made enough money to detach from the careerism that has saturated their lives. Charity, who highly values social capital, clashes with Sid over the likelihood of him securing tenure, which she deems necessary to integrate smoothly into the kind of academic community that she wants to belong to. The Morgans slowly learn that the Langs have dysfunctions of their own lingering behind a highly conscious veneer. In the meantime, the Langs also introduce the Morgans to other local academics, through which Larry begins to build a network and the accompanying fiscal and job security. Through parties and concerts, the Langs quickly begin to enrich the Morgans’ otherwise difficult time in Madison. Despite their historical and cultural differences, the couples’ shared interests in humanistic pursuits, such as writing, literature, and spirituality, bind them together across time as they grapple separately and collectively with existential stresses. While the Langs are highly educated, wealthy, born into prestigious families, and ostensibly well integrated into their society, the Morgans come from poor, uneducated backgrounds and struggle to fit in.
In a stroke of luck, Larry and Sally become fast friends with Sid and Charity. He tries to convince the academy staff to extend his teaching job to support Sally and their expected child.
Larry recalls his early years in Madison, in which he struggles to secure a job in a liberal arts college while also trying to complete his first novel cloistered in a small, dingy basement apartment.
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