‘Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky’ joltingly vulnerable
‘Female Persuasion’ tackles timely topics
By Christina Ledbetter
‘The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky’
Casale
(Knopf), by Jana
Leda walks through life with a constant friction between expectation and reality. We meet her as a selfconscious, hopeful college student in Boston willing herself to become the woman she thinks she should be (one who reads books by Noam Chomsky).
Instead, the ordinary minutes of Leda’s life morph into decades, and we follow her throughout adulthood. She sorts through her underwear drawer and concludes, “I value affordability.” She talks to strangers at a party while her friend kisses a new boyfriend on the couch. She scans Yelp reviews in search of a gym. It’s these common scenes combined with Leda’s piercing vulnerability with readers that create Jana Casale’s stellar debut novel, “The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky.”
The story is linear, but we do catch quick glimpses into the past and future. Casale introduces these snapshots so seamlessly that readers will remain anchored in the present yet find themselves possessing a deeper understanding of the main character’s current state.
Leda’s observances slyly hypnotize readers into yearning for or detesting the people around her. When her cousin (the one the family can’t stop gushing over due to her romance with a doctor) eats “potato salad with swift overachieving mouthfuls,” readers will loathe her appropriately. Leda’s reflections also add a consistent dose of well-timed humor.
Body image places a significant role in the read, dominating much of Leda’s thoughts. Her inner dialogue proves raw and articulate, portraying feelings many will relate to with sharp eloquence.
Casale’s writing possesses a certain snap, instantly relating us to her protagonist. Reading her work is like watching a play from the dressing room as the heroine squeezes into pants she hopes conceal extra weight, tries to make sense of last week’s one-night stand and murmurs her lines before stepping onto the stage.
“The Female Persuasion: a Novel”
(Riverhead Books), by Meg Wolitzer
In the first 15 pages of Meg Wolitzer’s new novel, a college student is groped against her will, setting in motion a life devoted to female empowerment. In the next 30 pages she meets the woman who inspires her to pursue that life. And in the more than 400 remaining pages of “The Female Persuasion,” Meg Wolitzer tells a story about womanhood, ambition, ego and ideals.
If you liked the sprawling, decades-long narrative of “The Interestings,” “The Female Persuasion” follows a similar structure, spanning a little more than a dozen years. Greer Kadetsky is the young woman in the opening chapter and the feminist icon she meets in a bathroom after a campus speech is named Faith Frank — “a couple steps down from Gloria Steinem,” as Wolitzer describes her. There’s also Frank’s benefactor and former lover, Emmett; Greer’s first love, Cory; and her best friend, Zee.
Each character gets chapters that go deep inside their heads. There’s a lot of inner monologue, sometimes to a fault. The issues are complex, certainly, but some readers may wish the characters would simply act rather than reading paragraphs about what might happen if they do. One more complaint before the good stuff — there’s too much foreshadowing. Why do we need to know at the end of chapter one that Greer herself will become famous and write a bestseller?
Wolitzer’s talent as a writer shines in lines that say more in a sentence than most writers do in paragraphs. “People’s marriages were like two-person religious cults, impossible to understand,” thinks Cory as he cleans one of the houses his grieving mother used to maintain. Or from Faith’s head as she daydreams during a massage: “You never knew when you were lifting your child for the last time; it might seem like just a regular time, when it was taking place, but later, looking back, it would turn out to have been the last.”
Wolitzer also has a fascination with food. She often sets the scene with it. In the fictional Ryland College that Greer attends because her parents didn’t correctly complete the Yale financial aid form: “Pizza would be their consolation prize: two girls alone late at night with the soft solace of warm dough.” And later, when Greer is the keynote speaker at a mentorship summit: “Drinks and canapes were circulating; slender Bellinis and gemological tuna tartare slicked with yuzu gelee.”
There’s much more to admire here as the novel ponders friendship, love and parent-child relationships. But in the end, Wolitzer’s real gift to her readers is a story that feels both timeless and very much of the zeitgeist. Her characters spend a lot of time soul-searching about a woman’s obligation to other women. “People did what they could ... until they couldn’t do it anymore,” she writes. Wolitzer does plenty with this book and one can only hope that her readers — of the male and female persuasion — will keep the conversation going after the last page.
While some may credit Wolitzer for being in touch with the zeitgeist, this reviewer — a middle-aged man, to be clear — gets the impression that Wolitzer would certainly applaud the current focus on #MeToo and Time’s Up.
“Look Alive Out There: Essays”
(MCD/FSG), by Sloane Crosley.
Established writer and best-selling author Sloane Crosley is back with a third book of essays. Ten years after the debut of “I Was Told There’d Be Cake,” Crosley delivers 16 new stories with her trademark sense of humor and wit.
“Look Alive Out There” is a book about accepting whatever life may throw your way. Through personal anecdotes, Crosley invites readers to first laugh at her extenuating circumstances and then join her as the crazy, unimaginable details unfold. We trudge through the tales of an obnoxious teenage neighbor in New York and a mountain climbing trip gone terribly wrong in Ecuador. Readers follow along as Crosley interviews her ’70s porn-star uncle, learns to navigate vertigo and addresses the ailments of an epileptic dog.
Although the book is peppered with a variety of essay lengths and topics, one thing remains true: Crosley’s voice is original, sophisticated and full of humor. Look no further than the stories about the British man who stole her website identity or the hippie couple who invited her to participate in amorous activities. Through all of these outlandish ordeals, it’s plain to see why Crosley has been compared to both Nora Ephron and David Sedaris.
“Look Alive Out There” is a delightful collection of hilarious essays that manage, in some cases, to point to relatable life lessons. It’s equally smart, creative and hilarious. Crosley teaches readers not to sweat the small stuff in life. Hold things loosely, crash the shiva, be true to yourself and laugh accordingly. (AP)