Eves Apple

Jonathan Rosen's Eve's Apple on the surface appears to be a story about a man obsessed with his girlfriends' eating disorder. What it turns out to be is something much more intriguing; a mystery novel where the crime is both the eating disorder and the obsession to solve it. The internal unknown of a disease still incurable by both medicine and psychology is for Joseph Zimmerman both a source of deep distress and his raison-d'etre. Josephs girlfriend, Ruth Simon, whose subtle (and common) blend of anorexia and bulimia becomes almost normal in comparison with Josephs obsession.

Riddled with the history and language of the psychological disorder, Eve's Apple becomes an impromptu course on the habits of the many brands of eating disorders without ever losing hold of its forward thrust- which is helped along by a shrewdly pulp-esque narrative which only enforces the sense that there is something to be solved, that a smoking gun (or pastry) will solve the crime of why Ruth won't eat. Joseph, an unassuming teacher of English as a second language to Russian immigrants by day, becomes cloaked in the unraveling mystery of Ruth's eating disorder by the darkness of The New York Public Library.

Ruth's tumultuous relationship with her mother brings Joseph in contact with Flek- a former Freudian analyst who has since disavowed any faith in the process but who seems keenly interested in Joseph's obsession with Ruth. Flek comes across as a sort of cross between Shakespeare's Prospero from The Tempest and Hannibal Lecter with his cold, unassuming manner that can both simultaneously soothe and alarm. The visits Joseph has with him are built up well, with a mix of tension and humor. They reveal, with great patience, the possibility of a relationship in Josephs' mind between Ruth and his sister Evelyn, who committed suicide when he was younger. These conversations become a little too ramblingly philosophical at times, but those are rare moments in a book which is otherwise very tightly wrought.

The relationship between The Tempest and Eve's Apple is intriguing (Fleks' own daughter is named Miranda, certainly after Prospero's) and numerous Shakespearian references are made, especially towards those universal themes that make both his works and this work of Rosen's great: fate and the control we have over our destiny, the mystery of the self-fulfilling prophecy, and the inability of an ill society to spot illness within itself. Rosen touches delicately on these issues without seeming preachy or derivative. His story, which could easily have become another self-conscious Girl-Interrupted, is taken from a new, outside perspective and opens up a path not towards pity but instead towards understanding of a social disorder which is only beginning to be talked about openly.

The mystery of Ruth and her illness is the main draw, but the more subtle mystery of Josephs' sister looms ever larger in parallel as the two come closer towards meeting. Wisely, Rosen abandons the previous pulp tone that Joseph's inner voice eagerly took on as the stakes become raised and the twin focal points become clear. While Joseph and Ruth become closer spiritually, their physical relationship dwindles. It's as if Josephs' studying of her disorder has brought him so well within her mind that the detachment which Ruth suffers between her brain and her body begins also to detach him from her body. She embraces his obsession by sharing her own and eventually, of course, he gets too close and sparks fly.