But if there’s a general theme in the cannon of Emily Giffin, it’s that of infidelity among the upper crust. In Something Borrowed , you rooted for Rachel and Dex, even if Dex was engaged to Rachel’s best friend. (It sounds awful, but really, the fiancé was a treacherous rat). I get the feeling someone lambasted Giffin for treating infidelity as a situation that always works out, and she’s taken the message to heart, no pun intending, with Heart of the Matter (Let me take a moment to smile at how I know someone out there may accidentally buy or borrow The Heart of the Matter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) , which is also about marital unhappiness, only it's written by Graham Greene and set in Sierra Leone during WWII.)
Back in modern-day Boston, stay-at-home mother Tessa and Nick, a world-renowned pediatric surgeon (aren’t they all?) appear to be the picture of domestic bliss, but his draw toward a patient’s mother threatens to rock their family. Meanwhile, the single mother, Valerie, is struggling with being alone while her beloved son recovers from an accident. It's to Giffin's credit that Valerie never comes across as "The Other Woman" as much as a lonely person caught up in the idea of finding love.
Still, putting aside the horrendous ethical implications of a physician being overly friendly with a vulnerable parent whose child is ill, and the fact that I don’t really believe that pediatric surgeons have time to juggle their case load and domestic lives while schmoozing up Mrs. Not My Wife, Heart of the Matter has characters who are more fully formed that Giffin’s previous works. Giffin’s fans will squeal with the reemergence of characters from Something Borrowed . New readers will enjoy Heart of the Matter in direct proportion to how much they want to spend time in the lives of the privileged but troubled. Those looking for a more fun beach book should try the The Opposite of Me: A Novel .
