Joy for Beginners

Novel by Erica Bauermeister

It's sweater weather, folks. We're in the season of socks all the time, tea and coffee morning and afternoon (decaf, most of it), fight with the seven year old to get her to wear a coat every day. I'm sipping a vanilla cappuccino right now courtesy of my Keurig. And for many of us, this weather ushers in a new kind of reading material. It's the opposite of beach reads but with the same effect, like an eggnog latte versus a Frappuccino or a hot buttered rum over a daiquiri. Wait a minute...okay, I'm back. All the drink metaphors made me have to go to the bathroom.

So anyway, this book has a certain heart-warming quotient to it, where it's not too serious but touches on real life issues and relationships among a group of women of various ages, that makes it seem comforting and familiar. The beginning has a woman who has just overcome cancer and is celebrating with the circle of friends who have borne her through the disease and treatments. They encourage her to take a whitewater rafting trip with her college-age daughter to celebrate her victory, so she announces a challenge for each of them to undertake in the next year. The ages and walks of the women vary and so do their challenges, which the reader learns only in each woman's chapter. The voice telling the story remains impartial and consistent, so it's not too much of a bounce around to hear so many different stories. They each commit themselves bravely to their task and grow as expected but without too much sappiness or gift wrapped perfect endings.

And yet. Probably because I read this on the heels of a masterpiece (Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter) or because I was surprised and delighted to stumble on this author's first book (The School of Essential Ingredients) there were parts of this one that fell a little flat for me. The descriptions are too neat and tidy and come off as sentimental and a little sappy. They remind me of so many of the personal memoirish blogs I read, or all the thankful Thanksgiving facebook posts going around right now. Sweet but somehow all sounding the same. The characters, too, were less rounded and more like caricatures than I hoped for. I also recognize that these are issues I'm having with revising my own beleaguered novel, so I'm reading too much with a critical writer's eye. This is a "quiet" story, as one agent described my manuscript, and I enjoyed it quietly, like a warm pair of socks.

Two parting thoughts (and a list to keep my soul happy):

1) Next on my bookshelf is Jess Walter's recent collection of short stories. I'm kind of hoping I don't like it, because I usually don't like short stories, but he knocked my warm socks off with his novel, so I have to give it a shot. Plus, it's overdue at the library and we know how crazy that makes me.

2) I am trying to fix the blog so you can comment (that would be so much fun! like a real book club, kinda sorta). So far I've tried Google's suggestions to no avail, so I'm going to ask my husband will take a look. My kids think he can fix anything.