Sunday book pick: Husband vs best friend vs child vs career in ‘Goodbye Without Leaving'

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29-06-2025

'You put on some silly dress and you get married. Then you put on an even sillier dress when you're pregnant. You find yourself wearing the same thing day after day and you're a mother.'
At the heart of Laurie Colwin's 1990 novel Goodbye Without Leaving are the questions that trouble every modern woman: Who's my soulmate – my best friend or husband? Is a child worth trading a career for? What should I do about religion and spirituality as a feminist? And, will my mother ever let me be?
Being a Shakette
Graduate student Geraldine Coleshares has no interest in pursuing a doctorate degree and neither is she interested in following in her mother's footsteps and becoming a painter. If anything, she doesn't have a single creative bone in her body. The only art form that does interest her is music. Rock n' roll, in particular. Geraldine's mother detests her bohemian interests and would rather she found a more suitable niche. To fulfil the 'burning desire of her heart' (and spite her mother), Geraldine runs away to become a 'Shakette' with an all-Back rock n' roll group, Vernon and Ruby Shakely and the Shakettes. Unlike the others in the group, for whom travelling and performing and camping in buses is a temporary occupation, Geraldine tours with them for two years with no real plans for the 'real world'.
Her parents are at the end of their wits, but all will be forgiven if she marries well and settles down. The only link to her former life is her best friend, Mary Abbott. Geraldine describes their relationship as her not keeping any secrets from Mary, while Mary likes her most because Geraldine loves her the best. Severely practical, somewhat reserved, and in touch with her spiritual side, Mary is quite the opposite of Geraldine. She is preparing for a PhD degree and is quite likely in a relationship with her married professor. Mary doesn't say and Geraldine doesn't ask. Through the tumults of her childhood, Mary is the only one who has ever understood Geraldine's desperate need to be 'authentic' – something she experiences only after she joins the Shakette.
For a girl who has grown up comfortably with all material comforts, life as a Shakette isn't easy. The hours are long and brutal, drugs of all kinds are prohibited so there's no way to let loose, the food is terrible and they are always on the road. Still, it is a small price to pay to stay out of her mother's disapproving gaze.
So when the jaunty lawyer Johnny Miller attends her every concert in an attempt to pursue her, Geraldine tries every trick to ward him off. His upper-class background, Jewish faith, ample wealth, and a stable career would be everything that her mother would want in her son-in-law. And it is Geraldine's life's mission to never conform to her mother's wishes.
After rock n' roll
When the time comes to leave the Shakelys, reality hits Geraldine like a truck. With no real skills, she is not fit for employment. In the meantime, Johnny has convinced her to marry him and both sets of parents are planning a grand affair. Her stint as a dancer makes her an object of wonder in their social circles and Geraldine comes to despise going out. Geraldine proposes eloping and Johnny grudgingly agrees, but when she gets pregnant, in a final attempt at a rock n' roll lifestyle, Geraldine insists they keep the news from their parents. When they are eventually told, hell breaks loose – twice over.
The pregnancy worsens her identity crisis. She goes to work until she physically cannot anymore and actively resists the advice on childbearing and rearing from her mother and mother-in-law. The baby growing inside her is not as much of a problem as the expectations from her as a mother are. Until now, she hasn't been much of anything – daughter, wife, Jew. She doesn't even acknowledge herself as a singer or dancer and to real adults, being a Shakette doesn't mean anything at all.
Motherhood embalms her in its warmth but she learns that being a mother isn't enough either. Too much involvement with the baby turns it into a brat; moreover, who in this day and age can afford to lose their identity to a child? Part-time jobs and expensive nannies are recommended. Once Geraldine fulfils everyone's desire to be a wife and mother, it dawns on her that she's yet to come into her own.
And through it all, Mary seems to be the only person who really gets her. It is not her husband but her best friend she seeks when crisis strikes. It is only with her that she can be her true self. So when Mary says 'goodbye without leaving', Geraldine is spurred into action – it's time to do something about her own truth, to accept her faith on her own terms.
Geraldine's crisis is a rich woman's crisis. Even though she's at a perpetual risk of being excommunicated by her parents, she knows they'll never do it. Her crashouts come at the expense of no financial or social jeopardy – she has her family and their wealth to fall back on. Despite the troubles she constantly gets into, her carefreeness is to be envied. The question you will naturally ask yourself is: If given a chance, for how long would you postpone growing up?
Goodbye Without Leaving is a superbly whimsical novel about a rich girl who refuses to grow up. But when her own child poses questions about faith and the grand scheme of life, Geraldine finally realises she had it all figured out in her childhood – now, all she has to do is retrace her steps back to it.