David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "joyce-maynard"
LABOR DAY
I probably wouldn’t have read LABOR DAY if I hadn’t recognized the author, Joyce Maynard, who wrote a famous memoir about her relationship with J.D. Salinger. I looked her up, and she had some credibility as an author, having written five previous novels, and four books of non-fiction. But I wasn’t expecting much.
What a pleasant surprise. She had me at hello. A mother, Adele, and her son, Henry, are “kidnapped” at the local Price Mart by an escaped convict, but he’s the nicest crook you’ll ever meet. Adele is suffering from an especially severe case of agoraphobia. Henry even does her banking. Her only friend is a lady with a handicapped son. Frank treats him like a younger brother, going so far as to give him a bath. He can also cook better than Rachel Ray. Adele is a very good looking woman, and she could’ve danced professionally if she hadn’t gotten married. Soon the two have a romantic relationship going on, and Henry is jealous.
Okay, there’s some funky stuff going on here that I didn’t believe. It starts when we hear Adele’s back story. When she gets pregnant again soon after giving birth to Henry, her ex-husband doesn’t think they can afford another kid and forces her to have an abortion. No way. Adele loves babies and sets her hat on another one practically as soon as she gets out of the clinic. Adele would never agree to that in the first place. And she goes through hell afterwards, leading to the divorce.
So now we’re thinking, “When will they slip up and spill the beans to the cops, that Adele and Henry are harboring a criminal?" That’s when the two villains in the story show up. More originality on Maynard’s part. Frank’s ex-wife is meaner than a rabid skunk, and Henry meets this anorexic girl at the library who wants to have sex with him. HE TURNS HER DOWN. Come on now, Joyce! Henry thinks about sex more than Casanova and Don Juan combined. Otherwise she does a darn good job convincing us she knows what a thirteen-year-old boy is like. The girl is insulted.
Then there’s the ending. I must be losing it; I’m usually right about this sort of thing. Adele just isn’t the kind of person that good things happen to, especially after eighteen years. I just didn’t buy it. Maynard must've had the kind of editor who made Dickens rewrite GREAT EXPECTATIONS because he thought the two lovers should meet again. Still, this is such an original book, at times, that you can forgive a few quirks. Give it a shot.
What a pleasant surprise. She had me at hello. A mother, Adele, and her son, Henry, are “kidnapped” at the local Price Mart by an escaped convict, but he’s the nicest crook you’ll ever meet. Adele is suffering from an especially severe case of agoraphobia. Henry even does her banking. Her only friend is a lady with a handicapped son. Frank treats him like a younger brother, going so far as to give him a bath. He can also cook better than Rachel Ray. Adele is a very good looking woman, and she could’ve danced professionally if she hadn’t gotten married. Soon the two have a romantic relationship going on, and Henry is jealous.
Okay, there’s some funky stuff going on here that I didn’t believe. It starts when we hear Adele’s back story. When she gets pregnant again soon after giving birth to Henry, her ex-husband doesn’t think they can afford another kid and forces her to have an abortion. No way. Adele loves babies and sets her hat on another one practically as soon as she gets out of the clinic. Adele would never agree to that in the first place. And she goes through hell afterwards, leading to the divorce.
So now we’re thinking, “When will they slip up and spill the beans to the cops, that Adele and Henry are harboring a criminal?" That’s when the two villains in the story show up. More originality on Maynard’s part. Frank’s ex-wife is meaner than a rabid skunk, and Henry meets this anorexic girl at the library who wants to have sex with him. HE TURNS HER DOWN. Come on now, Joyce! Henry thinks about sex more than Casanova and Don Juan combined. Otherwise she does a darn good job convincing us she knows what a thirteen-year-old boy is like. The girl is insulted.
Then there’s the ending. I must be losing it; I’m usually right about this sort of thing. Adele just isn’t the kind of person that good things happen to, especially after eighteen years. I just didn’t buy it. Maynard must've had the kind of editor who made Dickens rewrite GREAT EXPECTATIONS because he thought the two lovers should meet again. Still, this is such an original book, at times, that you can forgive a few quirks. Give it a shot.
