Hello. I'm Catherine Weller and this is The Open Book.

This week's selection is The Trading of Ken by Rebecca Guevara.

We've all witnessed the dissolution of a marriage. Like a dying star, the once bright relationship collapses upon itself -- becoming heavier, denser -- until it either explodes in a ball of fiery gas or it simply stops twinkling. Though both outcomes are painful and oftentimes tragic, literature tends to explore the fiery explosion more than the equally sad fading light.

Local author Rebecca Guevara bucks the trend in her book The Trading of Ken. This quiet novel chronicles the seemingly perfect lives of Ken and Catalina Overton. It would be easy to hate them, with their good looks, thriving business, new house in an upscale neighborhood and two children who are too good to be true. But the reader can't quite do that, can't quite stoop to such vindictiveness towards Guevara's characters. They're too human for that; not necessarily likeable or dislikable, just human.

The same is true of the other woman, Suzanne, and her friends and family. If I described them to you, they'd seem like characters you've read hundreds of times before. But somehow, I haven't quite figured out how, they're not as hackneyed as one might expect. They could even be those kids in the rental property down the street from you.

Speaking of down the street, since the book is set in Salt Lake, native readers will have the pleasure of attempting to place the locations Guevara describes throughout. This is a sport in which San Franciscans or New Yorkers can readily engage. But such play doesn't come so often to the Utah reader, especially in a literary package.

The structure and pacing of The Trading of Ken are what really makes this book work. Guevara uses alternating chapters to explore the perspectives of Catalina and Suzanne, perspectives often of the same events and time frames. There are books in which this device can seem stilted or bog down the story's pacing with useless details. Guevara is able to keep the action moving forward, without those fireworks.

Which takes me back to quietness. The desperation of Ken and Catalina; the sadness, the anger and the yearning of all the book's characters can be close to palpable, but never loud. Reading The Trading of Ken provides an excellent telescopic view of a once bright star - a young couple's love, hopes and dreams - diminishing until it simply vanishes from view.

You've been listening to the open book on KCPW. I'm Catherine Weller.

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