San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Books: Music and mystery abounds in “Lady Sunshine.”
“Happiness and Mona go together like snails and salt.”
Mona Lisa Mireles is unemployed, has never had a boyfriend, lives with her parents in the “most boring town on the planet” (Tucson) and hates herself.
It wasn’t always this way. Only a year ago, Mona was an awardwinning, straightA valedictorian whose impeccably crafted resume boasted a 4.0 gradepoint average and all the right extracurriculars: She has a trophy wall to prove it.
What happened? In 2009, when this story is set, Mona lost her first job on her first day when the New York investment bank that hired her as a financial analyst
went bankrupt, crushing “a billion people when it fell.” To make matters worse, a shattered Mona gave a streamofconsciousness interview that went viral. She’s now recognized publicly as Sad Millennial, poster child for the generation of new job seekers spat out by the Great Recession.
Cynical, smart, selfdestructive Mona now fills her empty days of job hunting with booze, daytime television and channeling both her pain and latent artistic talent into a portrait of “Mona Lisa,” which she is slowly cutting into her thigh.
Elizabeth Gonzalez James creates an atmosphere of existential ennui in this debut novel published by the Santa Fe Writers Project. Mona’s attempts at dating make an argument for celibacy. A coveted interview turns into a humiliating display of boorish sexism. When Mona’s one friend gets her dream job, Mona gets drunk and lashes out, detonating the friendship.
Clean prose and dark wit keep things from becoming too grim. There’s a woman “who looks as though she would have relished the chance to electrocute strangers in the Milgram experiments,” a man whose “features are so ordinary … he’d make a great serial killer.” On a bad date, Mona observes: “Dave Matthews is what would happen if beer pong became a person.”
Mona is a paradox. She’s hyperaware of the state of the world — spiraling economic and psychological poverty — but she longs to be wealthy, even as this pursuit of money defines the same system that so epically failed her.
The novel asks what are we owed, especially Millennials. If we play by the rules, as Mona did so diligently, should we expect a reward? James’ frustration with the way the world has neglected her generation is clear, even if the story meditates on a point in history that has since shifted into a new economic nightmare, postpandemic. The counterargument is made early on when Mona sees a motivational speaker she’s long admired, Laura Horn. “The world doesn’t owe you anything. Stop waiting to be rescued and take control of your life,” Horn says.
Thankfully, even somewhat surprisingly, the narrative ultimately tips toward the optimistic. The things Mona covets — love, employment, independence and purpose — arrive when she listens to her better angels and sheds “a skin that no longer fits.”
“Mona at Sea” is sharply written Millennial malaise that dares to be hopeful.