LIVING a lie
THE MONICA LEWINSKY SAGA FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
Young Jane Young is a funny novel about a serious subject. It’s sort of a reinvention of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, since it’s about a political intern whose life is derailed after she has an affair with the congressman she’s working for. But, as Monica herself has pointed out, in her day there was no such thing as social media and slutshaming, and the potential for humiliation and ruin now is much greater for those involved in something similar.
Author Gabrielle Zevin captures this in a deliciously offbeat and brilliantly entertaining story that looks at events from the perspective of four of the women caught up in them. It begins deliciously with Jewish mother Rachel Shapiro, who can’t even go on an internet date in a nice restaurant without the subject of her disgraced daughter Aviva Grossman coming up and putting her off her paella.
Then we hear from Aviva herself, who has fled the scandal and changed her identity, becoming Jane Young, a wedding planner in a small town in Maine. When she runs for mayor, her past comes back to haunt her – after all, it was only ever a Google-search away.
Her 13-year-old daughter Ruby discovers her mother has been living a lie and heads off on a quest to find the congressman who she believes to be her father. That leads to part of the story being told from the perspective of the congressman’s wife Embeth.
Young Jane Young strikes a precarious balance between serious and laugh-outloud funny. It has plenty of thinking matter between its pages and is about being a woman in a world that is post-feminist yet still patriarchal. But it’s also just the right amount of crazy. If you liked Maria Semple’s quirky Where’d You Go Bernadette or this author’s previous novel The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, then you will want to read this heartfelt and humorous book.