By Justine Trinh
“What is love?” This is a question I pose to my first-year composition students whenever I introduce the concept of synthesis. In this activity, my students are first asked to give their own definition of love or what they think love is. Often, their idea of love is very warm and positive. I then introduce other examples of love that either challenge their notions of love or strengthen it. By the end of the activity, students come to the realization that love is a nuanced and complex concept that is not always positive; that love hurts and that it can be agonizing. They learn to reconcile their previous definition with their new one. If I were to ask Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood “What is love?” her answer might come in the form of Constellations of Eve.
Constellations of Eve follows the same core group of people, Eve, Liam, Peri, and Blue, through three different universes, “three deviations of one love story.” Each universe is distinct from the other, where a slight change, such as a profession or relationship status, can result in something monumental like estrangement between friends. In one universe, Eve is a grieving mother; in another, she is a country teacher. This rings true with Liam and Peri as well. Blue, however, poses an interesting complexity since in one world, he is Eve and Liam’s son, while in another, he is Peri and Liam’s son. However, despite these variations, these four people are intrinsically connected to one another, and they navigate their complex relationships throughout the three stories.
Constellations of Eve shows the complexity and nuances of love and how love can be conveyed in different ways. Love is in the silences. In one deviation, Eve watches and stands by Peri’s side as Peri’s mental health deteriorates right in front of her. Love is grief and obsession as seen in a different deviation where Eve is unable to let her son, Blue, go after his death and crafts a statue of him. Love invokes fear as the audience sees Eve stop talking to her best friend, Peri, afraid Liam will fall in love with Peri over her, and Eve would have to confront her own feelings of inadequacies and self-worth. Love is also letting someone go where Liam leaves Eve. Even though he loves her, he knows they are not working as a couple. He does what is best for them even if it hurts because love is pain. These are not the traditional images and depictions of love that immediately come to mind, but Eve and the other characters show us that love is ugly, messy, desperate, and visceral. Love does not deal in absolutes.
Although the complexity adds layers of thoughts, it also makes Constellations of Eve a challenging read. Most novels follow a linear concrete storyline with little deviation, while Constellations of Eve rejects this traditional structure of rising actions and denouements. As a result, the novel is abstract and drops the reader in media res, or in the middle of things. It forces the reader to be active and engage with the work to put the pieces together and figure the story out. Additionally, facts about characters change from deviation to deviation, meaning these details are not tangible. In one story, Eve is an artist, and in another, Eve is a country teacher; to understand the world where Eve is a country teacher, we as the reader must forget the fact Eve was an artist in the previous story. While Eve is still fundamentally Eve in all these universes, the Eves are also different from one another. Eve, the artist, is going through a loss that Eve, the country teacher, is not. Consequently, they respond to certain situations differently. Their experiences and the challenges they endure shape them, and as a result, they become two distinct people despite both being the same Eve.
For these reasons, I found myself flipping back pages, rereading passages, and at one point, starting over because I did not understand my first read. I struggled—and that is okay. At the end of the day, it was worth the read for me even though this book might not be for everyone. I genuinely enjoyed Constellations of Eve and found it a beautiful meditation of relationships and love that I would highly recommend.
Justine Trinh is an English literature Ph.D. student at Washington State University. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with B.A.s in Asian American studies and classical civilizations and a B.S. in mathematics. She then went on to earn her M.A. in Asian American studies, making her the first student to graduate from UCI Asian American Studies’ 4+1 B.A./M.A. program. Her research interests include Asian American literature, critical refugee studies, family and trauma, and forced departure and disownment.