By Mia March
New York, Gallery Books, 2012
325 pages Fiction
The Short List
My summer beach reads are usually mysteries. At one point in
my life, all I read was mysteries. For many women, however, the beach read of
choice is generally “chick lit.” The Meryl Streep Movie Club falls into that category.
My husband asked me what “chick lit” was when I mentioned
that I was reading The Meryl Streep Movie Club. I told him these details: two teenage
girls, June and Isabel, lose their parents in a car accident along with their
uncle, the father of their cousin, Kat. Their Aunt Lollie who runs an inn in
Maine raises all three girls. When the book begins they are all three called
home for an important announcement. One woman has just dumped a cheating
husband, one woman is looking for the father of her 7-year-old son, and the
third woman is debating whether she loves her long-time best friend. That, I
said, is chick-lit in a nutshell. Even the aunt, Lolly, has her secrets.
The intriguing literary device utilized in The Meryl Streep
Movie Club is that the three women and Lolly watch movies every Friday night at the
inn. This is Meryl Streep month, and the choices of movies mirror in several
ways the dilemmas the women are facing. They watch Mama Mia, Kramer vs. Kramer,
It’s Complicated, The Bridges of Madison County, Heartburn, Defending Your
Life, Postcards from the Edge, and Out of Africa. Typical to women watching
DVDs, there are lots of comments during the movies, as the women find that they
are relating their life situations to the situation Meryl Streep faces in the
movies.
The reviewer in the Book Reporter sums up her review in this
way: “THE MERYL STREEP MOVIE CLUB has plenty of tidy endings—enough to make any
big-time Hollywood producer happy—but it
also takes a realistic approach to the dilemmas facing Isabel, June and Kat,
not to mention Lolly herself. March's debut novel is a romantic, heartfelt
read, one that will likely be pulled out of beach bags from California to the
coast of Maine this summer season.”
When I received this book from the publisher, I decided that
watching Meryl Streep movies sounded like a really good idea. I think that she
is the greatest living American actress, particularly in her ability to play
people other than herself. I absolutely loved her in The Devil Wears Prada and
Julie and Julia, and although I haven’t seen The Iron Lady yet, I know that she
is marvelous in that one as well. I ordered Out of Africa from Netflix, and
while I was waiting, I watched Woody Allen’s Manhattan, which I believe is one
of her first movies. Then I watched Kramer vs. Kramer, which is the first movie
that I remember knowing who Meryl Streep was. When Out of Africa arrived, I
made my husband watch it with me. His comment was “Well this movie doesn’t go
anywhere but it is extremely compelling. I thought I’d get up and leave, but I
really liked it.” What’s my favorite Meryl Streep movie? I think I would have
to say either Sophie’s Choice or Adaptation; Sophie’s Choice for the magnificent
character and Adaptation for the way in which she brought credibility to a
basically quirky movie. (As an aside, I love quirky movies.)
In the case of The Meryl Streep Movie Club, however, I need
to say that the literary device was better than the actual book. In other
words, the movie(s) was better than the book. Read the book on the beach and
then have your own Meryl Streep movie month.
The author has another movie-related summer book coming out
in 2013. It involves another famous actor, Colin Firth, and it is called
Finding Colin Firth. I love Colin Firth. Want to join me in a Colin Firth movie
marathon?
Here is a really good summary of the book in Kirkus Reviews:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mia-march/meryl-streep-movie-club/#review
The review in The Book Reporter: http://www.bookreporter.com/reviews/the-meryl-streep-movie-club
Mia March’s website: http://www.miamarch.com
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