![]() “Young people today, everyone was told, hooked up with one another-’ hooking up,’ a phrase that, if put into quotation marks, made the person referring to it seem like an old, tragic loser whom the world had left behind-but if not put into quotation marks, made the person seem to have accepted the concept of hooking up fully and completely.” Wolitzer’s inclusion of the teenagers as sexual beings is refreshingly without moral finger-wagging: ![]() The cast of characters are drawn from teachers, administrators and students at the high school, and even the school-aged girls are not immune from the lack of affection for their boyfriends. Wolitzer nevertheless draws some interesting parallels between the importance of intimacy and healthy relationships, particularly as couples age or go through physical or emotional changes. ![]() Not coincidentally, the local high school is performing Aristophanes’ play, “Lysistrata.” Aside from ceasing all sexual relations, the women in “The Uncoupling” share little in common with the women of “Lysistrata,” being unwilling activists and as confused and irritated as their male partners in their own sudden lack of desire. ![]() “The Uncoupling,” by Meg Wolitzer, has elements of a fairy tale, or perhaps a vampire-less episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” A spell is cast over a small town in New Jersey, in which all women lose interest in their male partners. ![]()
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