Review of Today Will Be Different by Maria Semple

Last weekend, Seattle was supposed to experience an epic windstorm. We had one ten years ago, and it knocked out power for a while and made us all uncomfortable. Plus, my kids’ preschool was cancelled, and that meant that I was paying money for them to sit in my house with no electricity and nothing to do.

So my plan for this storm was to BE READY. The laundry was done. The food was prepared. I made sure the kids showered and wouldn’t smell for the duration of the event. I had batteries lined up for the flashlights and lots of candles (with matches!). I had blankets and warm pajamas. I also had liquor and a library copy of the new Maria Semple novel, Today will Be Different.

I imagined myself curled up, sipping a cocktail, wiping tears of laughter from my face. After all, I thought that Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? hit mostly all the right funny notes, and I expected nothing less from this follow-up. 

But then, after all that work to get prepared, the storm never raged. The local news sent all of its reporters out to various street corners to get blown around. They were supposed to say, “Look at everything being destroyed by this terrible weather! Look at me, barely able to stay upright in the gusts!” But, instead, the wind just went

*Puff *

and then died out.

One of the things that Semple does is parody Seattle and its left-leaning, often hypocritical hysteria. This kind of preparation-for-Armageddon is probably exactly the kind of craziness that makes her roll her eyes.  And certainly, the daggers she throws at Seattle (and left-leaning white people in general) in Today Will Be Different caused me to snort in appreciation.

But like the storm that didn’t happen, my enjoyment of this book never fully took off. The premise is that Eleanor, a middle-aged artist/animator/tv writer/graphic novelist (what did she do? It remained a little unclear to me), finds herself in a sort-of struggling marriage and a sort-of crumbling career. Over the course of one day, she stumbles toward getting her life together.

The thing is, however, there’s a darkish underbelly to Eleanor’s life. Her mother died when she was a child, leaving her and her sister to fend for themselves. Their father was often drunk and/or neglectful, and there was great pain around that. Now, as an adult, the estrangement Eleanor feels from her sister and the unresolved feelings she has about her parents seem to contribute to her inability to manage her life.

And that’s not really funny.

But instead of telling this more complicated story, Semple tries to dress it up in “comedy” (including an odd diversion to a sub-plot about New Orleans high society), which made me feel weird rather than wildly entertained.

This is still a good book. I’m sure many of you will read it and laugh at all the truly funny parts. I can see it as a satisfying novel to read on a long flight. However, I do wish that Semple had trusted us to be OK with the painful side of the story she wanted to tell.

Review of Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos

I finished Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos during a heat wave, which is appropriate because each chapter of this dark Midwestern comedy starts with an announcement about the scorching temperature. I read this book in a sweaty and uncomfortable state, with my feet in a kiddie pool.

I chose this book because of its summery cover. I have been looking for a good “summer read,” and all signs pointed to this one (Beach chair by a pool! “Summer” in title!). I liked this book quite a bit and was very entertained, but it wasn’t a quintessential summer read for me – mostly because the all the characters were unsettled or unhappy. That fact made me wonder if my own definition of a good “summer read” involves a happiness payoff, a literary frozen treat at the end, perhaps.

Summerlong is a story about midlife ennui. The central characters are part of a married couple living in a college town in Iowa. Claire wrote a book years ago but has since bumped along as a stay-at-home-mom.  Don is a struggling realtor who keeps secret how unsuccessful he is. When the book starts, Don wakes up in a drug-induced state with a beautiful but grieving younger woman. At the same time, Claire spends the evening skinny dipping with a younger man. The novel follows these characters as they try to escape the chains of their own lives.

There is something theatrical about this book. I could almost see it playing out on stage. The ennui is realistic, but the ways in which the characters come together and interact are farcical. There are, however, quite a few nude academics (gah!) in the story, so it might translate into the kind of play that embarrasses everyone.

This book made me think about midlife crises in literature. I did a quick google search and found that there are plenty of lists with titles like, “Popular Midlife Crisis Books!” All of them have exclamation points on them, which strikes me as funny punctuation for a state of mind that is defined by a feeling of immobility and lack of purpose. Most of the books on the lists seem to involve flabby white men coming to terms with their bad decisions. Is there a list that includes diverse midlife crisis experiences? Perhaps that will be a reading challenge for 2016.

In the meantime, this article from The Atlantic suggests that things do indeed get better when midlife passes. Claire and Don should put their clothes back on and hang in there.

You can find an interview with the author here and here.