Crucial Conversations

Philip, age 50, is anxious about his friend Reed's wife, Poppy. There is a dark side to her glittering charm. Philip is surprised to learn that Poppy is separating from Reed. Their children have left home. Poppy will claim that the Watergate Hearings have caused her to strive to attain authentic feeling. In the past Reed helped Philip with a prize-winning project. Perhaps things have not been harmonious between Poppy and Reed since the Vietnam War when Reed's son Harry was bullied by Reed not to apply for conscientious objector status. Poppy claims that Philip has used their marriage as some sort of second home. Philip feels that Poppy has a sort of hunger for life. She says that Reed, her husband, has started to represent everything she hates. Philip feels that he is more upset than either Reed or Poppy. He goes to see Poppy's mother, Evelyn. He feels that he is involved because it is his life, in a way. Philip's mother had filled his heart while she lived. Now she was unattainable. Poppy and Reed had been a way out of his uncertainties. Philip goes to see one of the children who was at college in Illinois. The boy, Emerson, is taking his father's way of dealing with the situation by showing anger and hatred. Next Philip has dinner with Reed's mother, Cecilia Whitelaw. After leaving Cecilia, Philip sees his own special friend, Kathy, a police officer. One of the characters opines that men may grow outside of marriage, women in it. At MIT Reed and Philip were called the Red Guard. In his schooldays Reed was not necessarily conservative. Philip admired his energy, his gusto. Philip comes to feel that he has been used by both Poppy and Reed in the crisis. He has been called upon to talk with their mothers and their children. This book is well done. It is experimental in its use of close focus, of dramatic material.