No smile to be his umbrella

A couple months ago I wrote about a book called JESSICA Z. that I had been recommended on Goodreads and liked; later I got a note from author Shawn Klomparens thanking me for it and asking, would I like a copy of his new book? Well, why not? He didn't ask me to write about it, but it strikes my fancy, so I will, but now you know.

The plot of the book is an inversion of a very very common trope in chick lit: Woman with life falling apart gets her physical act together and begins a new chapter in her life (usually via new job and new city), with the rebirth of romantic life following it. Instead of the sad single lady of convention, we meet Andy Dunne, a radio weatherman whose wife has just filed for divorce after cheating on him repeatedly with more than one person. Andy deals with this news and with the suspicion that his job is about to disappear into a corporate reorganization (not that a San Diego in a massive drought needs its own weatherman anyway) by drinking heavily. Near the eye of his personal storm system, Andy goes on a random audition and is chosen to host a new children's show for more money and fame than he's ever had, but they need him looking happy to do it -- in the next eight weeks. As set-ups go, I thought it was pretty clever and reminded me a lot of Jonathan Tropper, whose books aren't personal favorites but who is very in vogue right now with tales of men in crises that don't have to do with mistresses or motorcycles. Andy is an acerbic guy, inclined to see the funny in the serious and vice versa, and even in his personal Slough of Despond he was entertaining as a narrator.

Several twists and turns await Andy from there, but that was part of the problem I had with the book: That thread reinvention was enough for me to be interested in the story, but it got doubled over with personal tragedy and family issues and even a little PTSD, and none of those elements were quite as compelling. Andy's niece, for example, a high school film nerd who eventually comes to stay with him for a few weeks, has one very memorable turn at the beginning of the book and then pops up now and again with problems that Andy has to resolve; I got why he was involved, but her issues didn't really matter to me.

The other thread that's carried through the book besides Andy's career crisis is his relationship with a married coworker named Hillary, with whom he's been in (unconsummated) love with for years. My friend on Goodreads with whom I have discussed JESSICA Z. at length hated Hillary and found her completely manipulative and annoying, but I thought the position she and Andy were in, as work friends with the occasional frisson of something else, was an interesting narrative complication -- up to a certain point. I won't spoil that point, but I couldn't become invested in the outcome after that. After the umpteenth time that she re-sets the terms of their friendship I realized I was waiting for a moment of clarity to happen on his part, and that probably says more about my moral framework than the novel, but there you go.

Overall, I think I liked the book slightly more than JESSICA Z., and its ambiguous ending cast (for me) hope over its muddled middle. If you liked HOW TO TALK TO A WIDOWER or THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER, you'll probably like it more than I did.

Jessica Z.

A funny thing happened to me on Goodreads: I made two new friends in two weeks who both recommended the same book to me. It was a book I had never heard of, a debut novel, and being naturally suspicious I became convinced it was part of a very well designed viral campaign designed to capture the 4.7 of you who regularly read this thing.

I am a fool. And I'm pretty sure there was no underhanded ploy at work to pick up Shawn Klomparens' JESSICA Z (albeit at the library). But I liked the book and so far as I can tell it is not getting much attention. It's a sort of mystery with modern geopolitical consequences, and a love story, and manages those boundaries in a pretty interesting way.

Jessica Z. is a San Franciscan copywriter occasionally sleeping with her upstairs neighbor and more or less satisfied with her life. She meets and falls into an intense relationship with an artist who, intentionally or not, always seems a little aloof to her. Then at the height of their affair, she loses him -- in a way that leads her to question their entire relationship.

One reason JESSICA Z. stuck with me was because of the way it handled and manipulated these multiple genres. There's a hint of a quarterlife crisis and a work conflict dominating the book, and then something happens in the first 30 pages that jars you out of what seems like a comfortable world. So that either makes that one of the most plot-dense pieces of serious fiction I've read in a while or one of the most earnest and realistic pieces of chick lit. Not all of this is sustained -- a subplot about a blogger, which naturally I loved, gets dropped, and there are some family issues that stay behind. But if you like looking and thinking about different genres and transitioning among same, this book will be right up your alley. And no one told me to say that. Promise.