A.D.Miller (2015) The Faithful Couple.

What do you think about when you hear: The Faithful Couple? I think of an old couple being physically separated as they entered The Poor House. That was a last century thing, but we’re bringing it back step by step. Faithful Couple isn’t to me a guy thing. That old joke that your mates are whoever your wife’s pal’s husbands or partners is too near the bone. A.D. Miller twists this idea as he takes the reader through the lives of a faithful couple: Neil Collins and Adam Taylor. Each chapter brings the reader an update of their relationship. It begins in 1993 in California and ends in 2011 in London.

‘1993

HE WANTED to concentrate on the girl, but he found himself glancing at the young man in the corner of the yard. She was telling him about her course at USC, and the details, when he caught them were reasonably interesting, but there was something about the man that was distracting. Perhaps they had met before, Neil thought, but he couldn’t place him.’

The meet-cute. Neil Collins aged 23 and Adam Taylor aged 22. Neil studied economics at Sheffield and followed the traditional working class trajectory of having a shit job. At the end of it, the expectation of a shit life. Adam studied history at Durham. Life has been laid out in front of him. He’ll marry a posh girl like himself and get one of those jobs to which he’s been born too and look down on people like Neil as being a bit of a plodder in a non-patronising patronising way.

They’re different class. Both doing that student thing of touring and finding a world outside themselves after graduation. They’re not gay. They have the same sense of humour. They agree it would be more fun to hook up in their grand tour of America.

We all know how this ends, with promises to keep in touch—by text, since it’s 1993.

What makes it different is Rose.

The boys, well, young men, are on a camping trip with other tourists to the Yosemite. They’re set apart by their youth, but then Rose appears. She wants to get away from her dad and all the other old fogies. Both Adam and Neil make a play for her. Adam, with his classical good looks and easy manner, isn’t used to losing. When Rose asks Neil if he’s got a girlfriend, he answers that he doesn’t know yet.

Classy line. Neil tells Adam he needs the tent. He sleeps outside while Neil and Rose have sex. He wins, but they both lose. She’s fifteen.

Her dad wants to call the sheriff. Statutory Rape. There’s nowhere to run for Neil and Adam. But Rose persuades her dad not to. They make it home and put it behind them.

Only they don’t. The inciting incident pursues them like a curse and their friendship twists and turns around it, like a snake on a stick they both have to carry. Miller pitches it perfectly. From innocence to beyond adolescence to family life to how disappointment curdles lives, families and their sense of what is possible. What is moral? Few authors have me reaching for their backlist of books. A.D.Miller is added to my reading list. Read on.