It has been a sweltering, wet, gluggy February, and I am not enjoying the humidity. Breathing thick muggy air is not conducive to good sleep. The consequence of less sleep is more reading and I have had a stellar reading start to this year, already clocking 16 books to-date. So far, I have only had one five-star fiction read and it is my TBR book for February with this month’s TBR challenge theme being Vintage. Though my book of choice is relatively recent (a 2025 publication), I spent 3 months on the library holds list, sadly missing the festive holiday reading period that the book pitches itself towards, before receiving it late in January. But first…the blurb.

Reading Note 96: Vintage

Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman

Blurb: The new year had barely begun when Grace White and Henry Adler both lost their spouses. Now, nearly a year later, the first holiday season since their “Great and Terrible Sadnesses” approaches. Although their mothers’ scheme to matchmake the two surviving spouses, it’s clear that neither is ready to date again. Yet no one understands what they are going through better than each other, and a delicate friendship is born. When Henry sees an ad for a Christmas movie marathon-once an annual tradition for him and his wife-Grace offers to watch some films with him, despite her aversion to a few of his picks. Her two young kids, Ian and Bella, also join in whenever possible bedtimes permitting, of course. With each movie, Grace and Henry’s shared grief eases as they start to see a life beyond the sadness. But as they draw closer, other romantic possibilities leave them uncertain about their future together. Is their bond merely the result of loneliness and shared circumstances, or have they found something that’s worth taking a shot at . . . again?

The book’s two protagonists Grace and Henry were both widowed earlier in the year. Their concerned mums (who are in the same bookclub) orchestrate their widowed adult children to meet-up, much to the horror of both Grace and Henry who are just not ready to start moving on from their grief (I had to control my “WHAT!? It hasn’t been a year yet? Are these mothers OK???). Though Grace and Henry completely rule out a romantic connection, they do admit that perhaps they could try towards a friendship of kind. One where they connect while viewing vintage holiday films over the holiday season, occasionally including Grace’s two young children, and other people to also watch.

Grace still speaks to her (dead from cancer) husband regularly. He stands with her as she brushes her teeth, he sits in the passenger seat while she is driving, and basically she invokes him to get through the difficult decisions she encounters, he is her “emotional support ghost”.

Henry though has difficulty coping with the reality of his wife’s death in a plane crash, where nearly a year later he still hasn’t returned to the home they shared, he has been given a year of leave from work, and he is living back home with his parents, a shadow of his former self, as he is wracked with survivor guilt due to the argument they had just before her flight. By meeting Grace and her children, and her dog Harry Styles, Henry slowly emerges from the depth of his sadness.

I note here that Grace, like so many parents who lose their partner, doesn’t have the luxury or space to grieve on her own, as despair can’t feed and raise her kids. Grace also had planned her grieving phase with her husband which included acquiring a family dog on the same day as their dad/her husband’s funeral. The dog, called Harry Styles, initially seemed like a joke due to his name, but this doggy is a fully realised character, whose actions move the plot forward (Robinson, 2022). But his name also provides cheeky sass such as “Harry Styles sleeps around a little before he ends up in my bedroom”. A favourite romance-novel dog friend is another tick!

During the course of the book, Grace and Henry start dating other people, occasionally discussing their dates with each other. Henry and Grace still circle each other, too wary in their grief to breach that barrier with Grace thinking “Maybe we’d ultimately hurt each other because we both basically have scissors for hands. Or maybe we wouldn’t, and we’d be happy.” The movie intertextuality is well measured throughout the book and most of them are from last century and some from the early 21st century. These films imbue a nostalgia to both the readers and the characters from the book. It is similar to Jane Austen’s novels where though there is no on-the-page discussion of war, politics, tensions, the underlying tensions are ever-present. I felt this same sense in this book with familial discussions that had a very light touch, acknowledging climate change, acknowledging the rightwing uncle, the malaise of America but at no point is it overt. Grace sister says “I think that’s why everyone loves holiday movies so much. The world goes to shit, but they stay exactly the same”, with Grace also thinking that Tim (her dead husband) “cheering on young Bruce Willis as he shoots terrorists in the 80s. It was a simpler time”. US politics are hovering in the background, simmering, burning while these two grieving protagonists navigate a sweet friendship and then romance.

The novel is bookended with Die Hard (intro) and Die Hard 2 (outro), and the other movies mentioned are National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Planes Trains and Automobiles, The Family Stone, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Scrooged, Elf, Edward Scissorhands, Barbie: A Perfect Christmas, The Holiday, Home Alone, It’s A Wonderful Life, and Love Actually.

The biggest surprise for me was that the book starts on Thanksgiving and ends at Christmas. Just a month long with so much that happens and soooo much movie watching that it felt like a much longer time frame. There were some character revelations in the storytelling that felt forced and out of place, as though it was added as an after-thought. This annoyed me but not enough to drop the rating of the book from five-stars.

Though the book is sometimes madcap, the writing holds it all together, and at no stage does it get ludicrous. There are so many delightful moments in this gorgeous and heartfelt book. Both of our protagonists are so pained by their grief. Their story’s nuanced details unfold slowly, facilitated by the movie commentary which underpins the emotional journey of the two protagonists, sometimes bringing cheeky commentary, other times heartfelt realisations, and particularly with an improbable yet suitable ending.

So ultimately, I need to say, I loved this book. I adored this book. Though I borrowed it from the library after a 5 month reservation wait, I will be going out and buying this book. It is a keeper.

Metadata

My metadata:

animals, child-in-a-romance, children, christmas, city-us, contemporary, death, depression, dog, dreams, environment, evil-other-woman, family-dynamics, films, funny, great-dialogue, grief, growing-up, he-said-she-said, hope, house, humour, imaginary-friend, kindness, kiss, loneliness, love, mouse, movies, mum, no-touching, nostalgia, parents, popular-culture, read, regret, romance, snow, unconsumated, usa, widow, widower, wonderful-hero-heroine

My local library doesn’t hold this book but here are the subject headings of a library that does:

Widows — Fiction, Single mothers — Fiction, Grief — Fiction, Friendship — Fiction, Christmas — Fiction, Holidays — Fiction, Man-woman relationships — Fiction, Romance fiction.

This is not an awful record but it is not great either. Grief, friendship, romance and fiction are key themes. However, there is no indication of popular culture, films/movies in the subject headings, nor has there been a note inclusion with a list of the chapter names/movie titles – this type of note is a standard mostly used for non-fiction but it is not unknown in a fiction record. The films are absolutely central to this novel, providing a frame and moving the plot forward so it is a pity that this is overlooked. I am not fussed by the lack of a geographic tag though it would have been useful especially for people who search for fiction set in specific locations. But hey – that useless motherfucking man-woman relationships has been used. AGAIN!

Robinson, R. J. (2022). Reading and writing dogs in popular romance fiction (Doctoral dissertation, University of Tasmania).