OMNIVOROUS READER

Ever wonder what it takes to make a good relationship great or how to keep a great relationship from becoming average? Frances Mayes, author of Under the Tuscan Sun, gingerly guides readers through such questions, and more, about the nature of relationships in her new novel, A Great Marriage.

The 84-year-old author has generated an extensive list of bestsellers in the nearly two decades since her memoir about purchasing, restoring and living in an Italian villa became the basis for a Hollywood movie starring Diane Lane. Her forte — travel and food writing — is evident in A Great Marriage, a love story based largely in fictional Hillston, a North Carolina town with similarities to Hillsborough, where Mayes and her husband spent many years in a historic home along the Eno River.

Whether it’s through a Lowcountry seafood boil on fictional Indigo Island, a pub meal, too much Scotch on a drunken night in London or accounts of homes, streetscapes and waterscapes scattered throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, New York, San Francisco and London, Mayes’ descriptions have transportive power.

A Great Marriage opens in Hillston at a lavish dinner party celebrating the whirlwind romance and engagement of Dara Wilcox, a well-to-do aspiring law student who grew up in the quaint town, and Austin Clarke, an affable young British architect working temporarily in New York. The two met at a New York art gallery when Dara was visiting from Washington, D.C., for the weekend. “They looked at the contorted, deflated gray balloons glued to a manhole cover for a full minute, then at each other,” Mayes wrote. “They started laughing.”

While it depends on which character is doing the storytelling to be sure who picked up whom, there’s no question that Austin and Dara are drawn almost instantaneously to each other. They fall feverishly in love, determined to make their lives together work even though they live in different cities and are at different stages professionally.

When a glass of red wine is spilled at the bountiful meal Dara’s parents prepare for their spirited daughter, her genial and well-mannered fiancé, friends and family, it does more than make a mess. Not only does the wine stain the white tablecloth and napkins, it splashes onto Austin — and portends turmoil ahead.

Shortly after that night, Austin gets tumultuous news from London that changes his life and the trajectory of the romance that had seemed destined for the wedding aisle. He’s about to be a father. Adding more drama to the mix, the mother-to-be of the child conceived after a night of heavy Scotch drinking has a potentially fatal medical condition.

Suddenly the engagement is off.

Austin moves back to London, unsure of what fatherhood will look like for him.

Dara is gobsmacked and seeks solace from her parents in North Carolina, her grandmother on the South Carolina coast, her good friends in San Francisco, and a crew of artists with whom she spends a summer helping to give new life to an old seaside motel.

There’s an assemblage of characters that Dara and Austin call on as they go their separate ways; some better fleshed out than others. We meet many of them in the opening pages during the engagement celebration, but sometimes it can be difficult to take them all in. It can feel as though you’re at a dinner party where you barely know the hosts or the guests and you’re constantly trying to figure out how they’re connected to one another.

Stick with it. As the story unfolds, the connections become clearer and it’s easier to distinguish the incidental characters from those who are key to the plot line.

Dara’s mother, Lee, a university professor in Chapel Hill who spent her career writing a book about William Butler Yeats, and her father, Rich, a journalist who gets plum travel assignments, have one of those marriages that seems in balance. Dara’s grandmother Charlotte, or Mimi, as she calls her, has had more than one marriage, but is so well-versed in the trials and tribulations of the institution that she has written two books on the subject — The Good Marriage, which sold millions of copies; and The Good Divorce: It’s Never Too Late, also a bestseller. Austin’s father, Michael, and his sister, Annsley, are booksellers in London who come to his rescue as he ponders life without Dara.

Life lessons are dished up throughout the book about the meaning of marital vows and what makes a great marriage. Mayes is deft at showing the many angles of the predicaments Austin and Dara have found themselves in, making it possible for readers to empathize with each one.

Some might find it difficult at times to relate to Dara, who has the freedom to stay with friends for weeks at a time and travel here and there, seemingly without responsibility. There’s a bit of a fairy tale feel to the book.

But if you’re in the mood for some armchair travel and a glimpse into a world where people have the luxury of hopping across a country or an ocean in search of happiness, A Great Marriage offers a great escape.