Same Time, Next Year
In 1951, at an inn on the Mendocino County coast, Doris, a 24-year-old housewife from Oakland, meets George, a 27-year-old accountant from New Jersey at dinner. They have a sexual tryst, and despite the fact that both are happily married with six children between them, agree to meet every year at the same hotel for one night together.
The story jumps forward 5 years at a time, episodically chronicling their time together, the changes each goes through, their respective marriages, and their deepening connection. In 1966, for example, George, now middle-aged and dressed in a suit, is shocked when Doris arrives in denim and wearing her hair to her waist, having enrolled in UC Berkeley and become ardently leftwing. George, meanwhile, reveals his newfound conservatism as a result of his son’s having been killed in Vietnam the previous year.
At their meeting in 1977, George tells Doris that his wife, Helen, died unexpectedly earlier in the year, and that Helen revealed to a friend that she had known of the affair for ten years, but never told George she knew. Now a widower, George proposes to Doris, who refuses to accept because of her loyalty to, and respect for, her husband. Dejected, George leaves, but quickly returns, and they promise to continue the affair as long as they are able.
