Until the Real Thing Comes Along – Elizabeth Berg

Patty Murphy imagines her life as a mother – listening to fascinating fact about ants, waiting at home with her blond toddler for the older children to come home from school, watching her dark-haired daughter colouring with crayons. She wants a child with an almost visceral need, but Patty’s still single, and childless. She really wants to be a mother, but so far the closest thing she’s had to enduring relationship was with Ethan, and it broke her heart when he told her he was gay. He’s still her closest friend and confidant, and deep down Patty knows that if he could just love her everything would be fine.
I’m a little conflicted about my connection to the protagonist of Until the Real Thing Comes Along. I haven’t ever really felt a strong desire to have children, and my maternal needs are satisfied by the offspring of friends and siblings; this naked need made me uncomfortable – what is it that Patty thinks a child (or brood) will provide that will somehow complete her? All her fantasies are of harmony and Rockwell-esque portraits of family – is she prepared for less than perfect children? And what is she avoiding by continuing to pine for an unavailable man?
Berg’s gift is the touches of universal individuality. Despite this fundamental difference between us, there were many aspects of Patty that deeply resonated for me, including her status in the family. While:

I hate being the eldest. I hate being the only one who stayed, the one responsible for my parents while my sisters and brother do whatever they want. I hate being the only one unmarried and childless… the one they all worry about in ways that are just a little too-self-satisfied...

doesn’t wholly apply to me, enough of it does for it to ring true. And, like Patty, I used to feel pressure to buy something if I entered a shop, even if there was nothing there I wanted or needed.
Almost a decade old, there are a couple of passing notes that date the novel, primarily the outrageous idea that one might have a CD player in a car, but also the difference in landscapes between AIDS in the late ‘90s and now. For the most part, though, Berg’s writing is lucid, lyric and timeless, and beautifully combines poetry with pragmatism:

I realise I’m hungry. I hate when ordinary needs intrude on a melancholy reverie, but there you are, that’s a body for you.

- Alex