Community Library Notes
“Where’d You Go Bernadette?” by Maria Semple is the story of a mother/daughter relationship, with a few side stories thrown in. Bee, the daughter, is a smart, articulate, straight-A student. She wants as her reward for good grades, to have a trip to the Antarctic. Her mom gets seasick so is not 100 percent on board with this idea. Audrey is about to host a fancy garden party to attract new families to her private school. She wants her neighbor’s blackberries out of her yard in time for the party.
Son-Lin-Lu-Segal is also part of this story. She’s been promoted to work under Elgin, Bernadette’s husband, at Microsoft Corp. Semple uses e-mails from one character to another to move the story forward. The setting is Seattle, and the weather goes from bad to worse as the rain pours down. The mud slides into Audrey’s back yard and house from Bernadette’s hill. It ruins Audrey’s party. Audrey confronts Bernadette and her daughter Bee.
Bernadette falls asleep in the pharmacy while waiting for anti-seasick pills. Her husband sees her through the shop window, and decides to write to Dr. Kurtz, a shrink at Madrona Hill Hospital about his wife. He thinks he and Bee should go to the Antarctic alone and Bernadette should go to the hospital. Author Semple goes into Bernadette’s background: she was feisty and honest, and became a famous architect who was admired. She took a bifocal factory and transformed it into a home. It took two years to do this, and in a creative way, she had the workers knit glasses together to make walls. She made seats out of catalogues, and wasted nothing. She and her husband, moved into the house. Then she built the Twenty Mile House, in which every item in it had to come from within twenty miles of the property.
Millionaire Mill-Murray built a White Castle next door to her place. He discarded the bathroom brass fixtures and Bernadette went through the garbage to liberate them. Mill-Murray sued her. Bernadette was awarded a MacArthur Foundation grant for her Twenty Mile house. She sold the house and went to Europe with her husband. While there, the award-winning house was demolished. The buyer had been her neighbor, Mill-Murray. She never built another house, and she and her husband moved to Seattle. He went to work for Microsoft.
Audrey Griffin, whose house was destroyed, is staying at the Westin Hotel. She describes it in hilarious words in an email. Elgin gives a talk at a tech conference. He demonstrates how thoughts can make a robot do tasks, like clean up popcorn that has spilled everywhere. Microsoft will use this tool to help disabled vets. Elgin wants Dr. Kurtz to admit Bernadette to the mental hospital, but she cannot do this unless Bernadette is suicidal. Dr. Kurtz decides to use a method called Motivational Intervention that will cause Bernadette to voluntarily commit herself for treatment.
Suddenly, FBI agents arrive at Bernadette’s house, claiming that a woman Bernadette has hired is a Russian spy. She has stolen all their assets, and we discover that Son-Lin-Lu, Elgin’s admin, is pregnant with his baby. She and Elgin have gone to Argentina. (Why?) Author Semple carries the reader from one chaotic situation to another. Bernadette has left on a cruise by herself to Antarctica. When it docks in Argentina, there is no Bernadette. The captain sends a document to Elgin detailing Bernadette’s behavior on the ship which shows she bought drinks every day and bottles of wine every evening. Did she fall overboard while drunk?
Bee and her dad go to the Antarctic, she to look for her mom, Dad to find solace as an expectant father at his age. Audrey confesses she asked Bernadette to clean her hill of the blackberries that had ruined her house. She feels guilty that Bernadette might go to a mental hospital because of her lie. Does Bee find her mom? Do they reconcile? How does the author explain this at the end? Is the story realistic or a metaphor for a woman whose life changes because of a move to a different city? Decide after reading this on the fiction shelf of your Mendocino Community Library.
The Mendocino Community Library is at the corner of William and Little Lake streets, Mendocino. Hours: Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; closed Sundays and holidays, 707-937-5773.