When I was growing up there was no such thing as
Young Adult fiction. You read kid’s
books until eventually you moved on to adult ones. Consequently I find it difficult to decide
what falls within the genre. With its bright cover and teenage genius heroine Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria
Semple (W&N, $39.99) might be aimed at the younger market however its
themes seem fairly adult and the humour often quite sophisticated so who can
tell.
One thing is certain, whether it’s aimed at
young or old, this is a very funny book. It begins with the disappearance of
Bernadette Fox. Her sparky 15-year-old daughter Bee sets out to discover all
she can about her Mum, compiling a missing person dossier of e-mails and
documents. The story is told mostly through these fragments as well as extracts
from Bee’s journal.
I’ll admit don’t always get on with novels with
a bitsy structure like this. However, while the hodgepodge of reports, e-mails,
press releases, articles, invoices and school newsletters does build into a story,
it’s Bee’s voice that really makes things flow. Peppy and outspoken, she’s a
heroine it’s a pleasure to spend time with.
Anyway it transpires that Bernadette is a
radical architect who’s had a breakdown following a professional catastrophe
and moved with her Microsoft wunderkind husband Elgie to a wreck of a house in
Seattle where she’s at war with the neighbours and the other school mums
despite hardly ever leaving her home.
Bernadette is a mess but still her daughter
adores her. Things go from bad to worse when she agrees to a family trip to
Antarctica and sets about organising it with the help of her virtual assistant
in India. That’s when Elgie begins to seriously fear for his wife’s mental
health and plans an intervention. The FBI become involved, neighbours
machinate, colleagues plot – it’s a delicious high farce during which Semple
gets to sink her satirical bite into everything from major corporates and posh
schools to therapists.
With a 15-year career writing for shows like Ellen, Mad About You and Arrested
Development, Semple knows all about creating great screwball comedy.
There’s a particularly amusing series of e-mails between Bernadette’s crazy
neighbor and Elgie’s predatory assistant. She can pace a story; ratcheting the
hysteria then creating calm for poignancy. And she’s produced likeable if
incredible characters.
Where’d
You Go Bernadette is a brilliantly inventive,
dark comedy with a baseline of acerbic social commentary. Entirely
unpredictable, a real page-turner, and in places laugh out loud funny, I think
this one is going to be a hit with adults young or old who are looking for a
book to entertain and delight them and don’t have an issue with plots verging
on the ridiculous. For them it’s recommended.
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