Young Jane Young

By Gabrielle Zevin

Algonquin Books     2017

294 pages     Literary

A couple of weeks ago, I watched an interview with Monica Lewinski, and as I was watching, I kept thinking, “How can someone survive such a scandal, put on a brave face, and come back out into the light again?” Gabrielle Zevin tries to answer that question with her novel, Young Jane Young, which is the story of a young woman, Aviva Grossman, who suffers through a scandal, similar to the Lewinski/Clinton scandal, and survives by changing her name to Jane Young, reinventing herself, and moving half a country away—from Florida to Maine.

The brilliance of the novel is not just the story line, which moves along rapidly, but also the way it is presented. As my sister said, “We haven’t read this book before.” The book is divided into five sections, each with a woman telling the story from her perspective, at different times, and in different formats. Rachel, Aviva’s mother begins the story by telling most of the background to the scandal in a traditional manner. This is followed by Jane Young narrating her life as an event planner in small-town Maine, a single mother, raising her elementary school-age daughter, Ruby. Ruby’s section of the book consists of emails to a pen pal in Indonesia. At this point, the book really gets interesting as Ruby tells her story in email messages. Up until now, Ruby has no notion about who her father is or that her mother has completely reinvented herself. Ruby is very smart and  with the help of the Internet, and a few misplaced words that become clues, she decides that her father must be Congressman Levin, and she sets off for Florida to confront the congressman, using all the tools she has developed as her mother’s business assistant. The most surprising section of the book is narrated by Embeth, the wife of Congressman Levin. Told in the third person, Embeth is much more feisty and humorous than you would expect; her narration enhances the story dramatically. Finally, Aviva tells her own story in a “choose your own adventure” style. This is an utterly delightful way to describes the choices she made and why she made them.

The “choose your own adventure” narration describes to perfection the choices that people make as they embark on their lives, and how each choice—good and bad—plays a role in the next choice that has to be made. Told completely from the woman’s perspective, we totally understand how men generally get away with more crass behavior than women can. Embeth, for example, talks about how she had to choose exactly the right suit to wear when her husband is confronted by the press regarding his affair with Aviva, so she can stand beside him like the dutiful wife. Of course, the congressman is affected not at all. Additionally, we have become so impacted by technology, and Young Jane Young shows the impact that the Internet and social media plays in every aspect of our lives.

Initially, Young Jane Young reads like a typical woman’s fiction beach read, but as the story develops, we are invited to delve much deeper in our thinking about women’s roles and how life evolves. I am sure we will have a great discussion at book group tonight.

Zevin is the author of another favorite book of mine, The Storied Life of AJ Fickry. When Young Jane Young was released in 2017, NPR had an excellent interview with Gabrielle Zevin.

Recently my 7-year-old granddaughter told her parents that her teacher looked just like one of the “chicks” in the Avengers movies. Her dad questioned, “Chicks?” “Yes,” she responded. “I refuse to say the word, ‘woman’ because it has ‘man’ in it.” At some point they will have to discuss the use of the word, “chick,” but it looks like there’s another Ruby in the making.