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Art & Books Books

Benevolence

BENEVOLENCE by Cynthia Holz (Knopf), 308 pages, $29.95 cloth.

Holz reads as part of the Harbourfront Readings Series on Wednesday (March 16). See listing. Rating: NNN


This new novel by Cynthia Holz offers that beautiful combination of tension and tenderness.

Renata, a therapist who specializes in phobias, has some issues of her own stemming from the death of a sibling when she was young and her failure to conceive. Her husband, Ben, is a transplant psychiatrist, someone who counsels those who’ve offered to give up their organs.

His mother, Molly, has just taken in Saul, a lover 50 years earlier who may be Ben’s father, as a boarder.

When Renata gets too involved with a pregnant client whose husband died in a train crash and Ben too close to a potential organ donor who seems too good to be true, the couple’s lives, and their marriage, begin to unravel.

Holz is deeply skilled at conveying her characters’ emotional chaos. This isn’t a thriller by any means, but she knows how to make a reader feel very anxious. A dinner party at which Molly’s new tenant might spill the beans about the nature of their relationship is fraught. At times, Saul seems downright malevolent.

There are moments when you feel like shouting, “Don’t go there,” as you might in a horror movie. At other times, though, you just want to shake Ben and Renata.

The pair are so unprofessional that you can’t believe they’re able to sustain their therapy practices.

But in the end, Holz says more about human growth and connection than she does about weakness.

Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com

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