When routine bites hard and ambitions are low

Three Dollars
Elliot Perlman

What becomes of our younger, more idealistic selves? When I was in college, I swore I’d never become what I am today: married, suburban, domestic. I can hardly remember what I’d imagined for myself, exactly, but at some point in the intervening years, that person slowly dissolved and was replaced by the woman I have become.

I don’t really mind the loss of my idealistic self. Sure, she was more fun and got in a lot more trouble, but she was also unrealistic, neurotic, and generally unhappy. Now I know that what I once viewed as placid complacency is not actually so. It is possible to retain the good elements of our youth while shedding the bad. It is possible for me to enjoy being all the things I'd once held in contempt. Being a suburban wife is actually pretty awesome.

oh, GIS, I love you

Eddie, the main character in Elliot Perlman’s Three Dollars, is struggling with this very same thing. He cannot reconcile the college youth who rejoiced in Joy Division with the corporate slag he has become. Perlman examines Eddie’s evolution from young idealist to lost husband as a handful of individuals come in and out of his life – each time with unforeseeable consequences.

As a child, he is friends with Amanda, whose mother abruptly ends their friendship. Eddie can never quite forget the loss of his childhood friend, but time passes and he moves on. He goes to college and defines himself by the music he loves. He loves, loses, and eventually marries Tanya; in time, they have a daughter. Nine years later, he meets Amanda again; this time, he has only three dollars in his pocket. He goes on, time passes; nine years later, he meets Amanda, again with only three dollars in his pocket.

Much was made of this paltry sum that Eddie has each time he happens upon Amanda, but I felt that Perlman lost an opportunity to do more with it. When I read his Seven Types of Ambiguity almost two years ago, I was blown away. The idea behind it was simple enough, but it left me wanting to read more by Perlman. I didn’t have the chance to make good on this wish until recently, when I happened across Three Dollars. And, while it did not astound me in the way Seven Types of Ambiguity did, I know that I’ll read Perlman’s next work, whenever it happens to arrive.

In a nutshell: Good, but not as good as Seven Types of Ambiguity.

Bibliolatry Scale: 3.5 out of 6 stars