The Most by Jessica Anthony

I heard about The Most by Jessica Anthony on Sarah's Bookshelves, when Susie described it as "a book about a woman who went into the pool and refused to get out." 

It's early November 1956. The Russians have sent a dog into space, Virgil Beckett goes to church in his brand new '57 Buick Bluebird with his two sons, and his wife Kathleen stays home and gets into their apartment complex pool wearing her swimsuit from her college days. When Virgil gets home with the boys, Kathleen just stays in the pool. 

I thought this was a thoughtful look at how a marriage can fall apart. The beginning was interesting, the setting was interesting, the mini character studies on the two sons was interesting, and even the evolution of the marriage in peril was interesting, despite my dislike of that as a subject. The writing is lyrical, but doesn't devolve into poetic. We switch between Virgil and Kathleen's POV and while I don't really care about Virgil all that much (I'd much rather spend time with Kathleen), there were some clever passages where we see the conversation from different viewpoints and that was fun.

But boy was I ever let down by the last third of the book. It's only 135 pages long, so I guess I don't know what I was expecting, but I sort of wanted closure. I wanted to know if these two sat down and hashed it out. I wanted to know if someone ever figured out why Nicholas was a little sociopath. I wanted to know MORE. I feel like the ending was abrupt and disappointing and it let down the rest of the book. 3/5 stars

Thing I looked up:

Thessaloniki  - The second-largest city in Greece, with slightly over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of Macedonia. (Seriously, why is my knowledge of geography SO BAD?)

Hat mentions (why hats?):

He played a cowboy, he said, who sat on top of a horse and wore a ten-gallon hat. (page 28)

With the men out of the office, there was no one to complain when Virgil put on his coat and hat, hung the CLOSED sign, and left. (page 63)

The man was wearing one of those old-fashioned wool suits and a brown derby hat, as though about to embark for a day at the office in 1924. (page 67)

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Did you know where Thessaloniki was? Is your knowledge of the geography of the world as limited as mine?