Three in the World of Two

About the Book

Everything in this book has happened. Not all of it has happened to me.

Three in the World of Two is a mainstream fiction novel in which complex forms of love are explored: love, obsessive to the point of addiction; love as the prime ingredient in the raising of a child; and love as the means of ultimate communication within the closed circle of a tightly-bound family. The protagonists are people who, proverbially, "build their world around each other," at the exclusion of everyone and everything else. They revel in their fulfilling relationship, only to find themselves incapable of functioning outside of it, and of coping with loss. Their isolationism leads them, in an arc, from joy to tragedy to an ambiguous ending.

The story begins in 1969 in San Francisco. Christopher and Maggie, two unpopular, reclusive teenagers, fall in love. Their seemingly simple teenage romance quickly grows into an obsessive interdependence, passionate to the point of violence.

After college, they marry. A little girl is born, and the story becomes essentially her story, which will bring us into the nineties.

Heather is a precocious, brilliant child. She spends her childhood studying her parents, fascinated by their "magnetism," which she begins to understand as she enters puberty. Through her eyes, they become fully three-dimensional. But it will be a while before she understands her parents' personalities; he is a daydreamer who worships the feminine (his god is definitely a goddess) and can only be fulfilled through his role as a husband/lover and father. Her mother, a strong, scientific mind with no great appetite for homemaking, subtly guides their lives. They are a handsome, intelligent couple, slowly gaining recognition in their professions: Maggie is a historic anthropologist, Christopher a writer.

Heather's parents transfer their intense love for each other to her, raising her as a free spirit, teaching her that their love is hers unconditionally. In the process, they create a bit of a monster: Heather is generous, affectionate, and a straight-A student — she is also spoiled, obnoxious and willful. Her parents take her on wonderful, eventful voyages to New Mexico and Europe. Her relationship with her father blossoms as she grows, and she begins to compete with her mother for his affection. Her budding sexuality turns her into something of a voyeur, spying on her parents.

Heather is fully aware that she is a strange teenager. In school, she is known as wild, as very "cool," but the fact that she prefers to spend time with her parents than with her peers also makes her a terrible nerd. But her peers cannot give her what her extremely liberal parents can: they are a much greater source of thrilling information on subjects usually taboo to teenagers.

Christopher and Maggie realize Heather is turning into the same obsessive, clannish person they are, too attached to them. Although they are affable and enjoy good friends, they have always been happiest in each other's company. For Heather's sake, they now attempt to reintegrate into the community and be "normal" citizens. They succeed temporarily. Heather makes friends and acquires a steady boyfriend.

All seems idyllic for a while, but over the years cataclysmic events rend the family asunder, and Heather, now the main protagonist in the novel, begins to sink into depression and alcohol.

By eighteen, she is alone in New York, on a full-blown self-destructive rampage, for which she blames her father.

They can live neither with nor without each other. Separated, they engage on similar paths of moral collapse, becoming intermittently each other’s dark reflection. He retreats into solitude and gradually edges toward a complete breakdown. She bravely tries to have a life: she stops drinking, studies at NYU, goes into therapy, and eventually marries. But her marriage becomes the final divider between Christ

About the Author

B.C. St.Clair has published poetry, traveled extensively, lived in France and Italy. At present, he makes his home in New York and New Mexico. This semi-autobiographical novel is his first.