The marriage

About this book

The Marriage by Ann Bannon is a novel written in the mid-20th century. It is a domestic drama about identity, desire, and the wreckage caused by long-buried family secrets, centering on newlyweds Page and Sunny Pringle and their friends Jack and Laura Mann. The story tracks a blissful marriage shattered by the revelation that Page was adopted and that he and Sunny are, devastatingly, brother and sister, while also exploring unconventional relationships and social taboos.

The opening of the novel frames the crisis with a phone call that turns a joyful evening into terror: Page learns from his adoptive father that Dr. Blue has confirmed he is Roger Rotheli, the long-lost son of Sunny’s parents. Before that revelation, we meet Jack and Laura Mann in Chicago, who recount Page and Sunny’s dazzling courtship, quick marriage, and move to New York, alongside Jack and Laura’s own unusual but devoted marriage. We see Page’s deep resentment over his concealed adoption and his fraught distance from the Pringles, even as life seems to blossom: Page lands a magazine column and Sunny discovers she is pregnant. A Christmas party reveals Page’s discomfort with difference, contrasting with Jack and Laura’s quiet resilience. The phone call arrives just as the couple plan to share their good news, and the truth detonates their happiness; Page reels, Sunny demands the facts, and the chapter closes with him confessing the unimaginable and trying to flee.