The 1970s

The 1970s matter in the novel chiefly as the historical setting for John Nelson’s explanation of why he left Elizabeth Bohlinger. His recollection turns the decade into more than a date: it is the period in which Charles Bohlinger’s threats over custody made Elizabeth’s choice of love carry the risk of losing her sons. The consequences of that pressure reach into the family’s later understanding of its past.

The Period in John’s Recollection

John explicitly places the events in the 1970s, recalling that “back in the seventies. Things were different then.” He describes Charles as forcing Elizabeth to choose between him and John after discovering that the two had fallen in love. Elizabeth told Charles she loved John and walked out of the kitchen, but Charles stopped John from following her and threatened what would happen if she left her husband.

Custody, Reputation, and Separation

As John recounts it, Charles promised to testify that Elizabeth was a “slut” and an unfit mother. He also threatened to portray John as a pot-smoking boyfriend: John acknowledges that he had smoked marijuana, and feared that this would make him appear to the court as a liability. John believed the courts would favor Charles, leaving Elizabeth at risk of losing Joad Bohlinger and Jay Bohlinger. His account ties the era’s significance to a concrete imbalance of power: Charles could use the prospect of a custody fight and the language of maternal fitness to make Elizabeth’s choice appear dangerous for her children.

John says he lied to Elizabeth, telling her that he did not want a permanent relationship so she would not have to choose between him and her sons. The separation was therefore not, in his telling, evidence that he did not love her; it was a painful decision made under the pressure of Charles’s threat. John remembers the cost as nearly undoing him, while believing that losing her boys would have devastated Elizabeth.

Historical Past and the Present Timeline

The 1970s belong to a remembered family history, while Brett Bohlinger’s goal-list crisis unfolds on a separate, later timeline. That part of the story is marked by a one-year deadline running from September 13, and Brett, at thirty-four, worries that leaving Andrew would mean risking the life she has built. By the approach of March, she has completed five of ten goals and sees falling in love, having a baby, buying a horse, and getting a beautiful house as unresolved challenges. The text does not identify these later events as taking place in the 1970s; their contrast with John’s explicitly dated recollection instead shows how one family’s choices and constraints are revisited across generations.