We Loved Him

"We Loved Him" tells the story of a woman who discovers by chance the true nature of her former lover by responding to increasingly intimate and revealing emails from a woman she has never met but with whom she shares a surprisingly similar history.Diane, the narrator, had ended a primarily long-distance relationship with Douglas several years earlier, a relationship that had been difficult for Diane to maintain because he was usually living and working elsewhere. Sady, the woman who initiates the dialogue with Diane and continues to write to her, has been Douglas's live -in lover for several years. Sady contacts Diane because she has just discovered that Douglas is hiding an affair from her, affair that he is having abroad, and she thinks that Diane can explain to her what is happening and why he is lying to her and being unfaithful. And why Diane? Because, as Diane finds out, it was Sady with whom Douglas was having an affair when Diane ended the relationship, unbeknownst to her at the time.The two women learn a lot about Douglas, and about themselves, by writing to each other and comparing their observations, insights and even fears.But the book has another dimension, more philosophical.The author is fascinated by symbolism. What Diane discovers is not only the blindness of love, but also a more profound understanding of life and its meaning that transcends traditional views of love.The allusions to the beliefs of Native Americans (the "Pueblos"), to art (through the well-known painting of Edvard Munch), to the cinema (through Woody Allen's "Match Point") underline the need to understand ourselves better, especially to identify and then reject the lies that we tell ourselves.