Tag Archives: relationships

Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

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I fell in love with Curtis Sittenfeld’s writing when I read The Thirteenth Tale. Although I told everone to read it, now I can’t remember what is was about and I still struggle spelling her name. In her latest book, a Reese Witherspoon book club pick, Romantic Comedy starts as a primer on the popular live weekly comedy variety show, Saturday Night Live.

If you have watched SNL, you will recognize the format, and appreciate the behind the scenes tutorial. Sally Milz is a ten year veteran comedy writer for the show, who provides the insider information about fellow writers and staff. The target episode has Noah, a thirty-something handsome singer who is both hosting the show and providing the musical numbers for the show. As handsome as he is, he may be wearing a wig, but this does not stop Sally from making a connection as preparation for the week’s show progresses. Sadly, Sally inadvertently insults him – in a not so funny way – and the burgeoning romance fizzles.

Two years later, enter Covid and Part 2, with Sally and Noah emailing each other. Mel Brooks could not have written better dialogue, and sometimes I felt I was reading one of his parodies, or maybe it was a farce? At any rate, the laughs are subtle and the romance intensifies. With Noah secluded in Los Angeles, with a housekeeper, chef, and trainer, and Sally in Kansas City with her eighty year old step father and his dog, their emails are long and comfortable, revealing past relationships, attitudes, and secrets (most times funny) about themselves. I have been in both LA and Kansas City, and I doubt I would have wanted to spend Covid isolation in either place, but maybe the chef would have helped. They decide to actually talk on the phone, and eventually set up a meeting.

As Part 3 begins, Covid is still in the air, so Sally drives to LA, supplied with protein bars, hand sanitizer, masks, and water. Secluded in the bubble of Noah’s beautiful estate, they finally provide the love scenes – until, predictably, the paparazzi invade their privacy and Sally’s step father’s bout with Covid prompts her return to Kansas.

All ends well, and as with any good romantic comedy, they live happily ever after. A fun romp and timely. This may be the first novel written during Covid that not just acknowledged its impact on lives but also had the characters emerging better for it.

I Have Some Questions For You

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On days when I only want to stare out the window and can only manage cheese sandwiches and yogurt (and of course chocolate) for sustenance, I can justify never leaving my couch if I have a page turner like Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions For You – a complicated mystery focusing on one death with so many tangential subplots.

Bodie Kane, a successful podcaster, returns to her New Hampshire boarding school alma mater as a visiting lecturer and finds herself investigating, with her students, the death of her roommate twenty years earlier. Bodie is convinced the school’s athletic trainer Omar Evans who was convicted is not the murderer. As she investigates fellow students and the music teacher who seemed a little too friendly, Bodie remembers incidents from her time as a poor student among wealthy and entited class mates.

Gabino Iglesias for NPR notes “it is a dark, uncomfortable story about murder, racism, sexual abuse, grief, the nature of collective memory, privilege, the way humans want to be at the center of tragedy even when they’re not, and feeling like an outsider. This is a novel about questions, with the biggest question of them all – Who killed Thalia Keith? But as Makkai cleverly inserts choice news clippings of other cases with implications for miscarriages of justice into the main plot, she raises more questions stretching into the failures of the American criminal justice system, the public’s obsession with stories of violence, and influence affecting outcomes. Was the man who has served more than twenty years in prison really the murderer? Is it too inconvenient to change the verdict?

Although the story morphs into a legal thriller in the last half of the book, Makkai carefully keeps bringing the reader back to reality. She tells who the real killer is, but she does not tie up loose ends. There is more for the reader to think about than whodunit.

Ms. Demeanor

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Elinor Lipton is one of my favorite writers and her latest novel Ms. Demeanor adds to her collection of quirky fun stories. The book started with a scene reminding me of actor Matthew McConaughey being arrested for playing bongo drums on his own balcony – naked. Like McConaughey, Lipton’s heroine Jane is arrested for being naked on her balcony. The story just gets more hilarious.

After being convicted of indecent exposure with a fellow lawyer on her rooftop terrace, Jane has her law license suspended for six months, is fitted with an ankle monitor, and confined to her apartment building in New York City. When her accuser, a prim spinster with binoculars from the building across the street dies suddenly, Jane becomes a murder suspect.

The romance in the story involves Perry, who has received a similar sentence and ankle bracelet for concealing a tea pot lid at the famous auction house where he was an art handler. Luckily, both Jane and Perry live in the same building, and use their six month confinement to fall in love.

Lipton inserts a variety of funny foils to keep the story moving, including Jane’s recipes on Tik Tok, wealthy Polish immigrants with expired visas, and a possible murder in a penthouse. Lots of fun, with twists and turns leading to a happy ending.

Nora Goes Off Script

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Formula romances are the Hallmark of a favorite streaming movie channel, and you may have wondered, as I have, who writes these happy ever after romantic comedies, always ending in a chaste kiss. In Nora Goes Off Script, Annabel Monaghan’s heroine not only writes the scripts, she lives them.

In a comedy that follows the formula, Nora meets the handsome hero, a movie star who decides to stay in her backyard tea house to get a taste of how real people live. Of course, he gets involved with the local school play; they fall in love; he leaves to film another movie. After a surprise misunderstanding is revealed, they all live happily ever after.

To keep it timely, she wins an Oscar for her writing, accepting in her six inch heels.

A fun diversion when you need it – just like watching one of those movies.

Someone Else’s Shoes

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JoJo Moyes puts a new twist on the saying “Walk a mile in my shoes“ in her new light romp through romance and intrigue – Someone Else’s Shoes. After Sam picks up Nisha’s bag by mistake, a series of incidents lead to changes in both women’s lives, revolving around a pair of six inch heel, red soled Louboutin shoes.

The plot flips back and forth from Sam to Nisha, as both women navigate new challenges, including homelessness, diamond smuggling, depression, mid-life crises, and, of course, romance. And isn’t it nice when all the bad guys get their just due in the end and all the good women get to live happily ever after.

Another fun tale and quick read from Moyes.