In the reading group guide in the back of a different edition of this book, Maria Semple says this: “When I decided to write a novel, I had just finished rereading The House of Mirth and was in the middle of rereading Anna Karenina. I realized my favorite kind of story involves strong, singular women who set out to destroy themselves. Especially if the women are living in fancy houses, have lots of help, and commit adultery. Sorry, but I just love that.” This One Is Mine has a lot of people with self-destructive impulses, actually, but it centers mostly on two women: Violet Parry and her sister-in-law, Sally. Violet is 42 and married to David, a very successful and wealthy manager of various rock bands; she used to be a TV writer but hasn’t worked for five years, and is currently a stay-at-home mom, though she has a nanny to help with her one-year-old daughter, Dot. Sally, a former ballet dancer, is 36 and single, in debt from an ex-boyfriend’s failed business venture, and desperate to be otherwise.
The third-person narration of the book switches mostly between Violet’s story and Sally’s, with a few bits centered on other people, including David and an ex-boyfriend of Sally’s. But most of the book is about the two women and what their discontent drives them to do. Violet and David both maybe feel taken for granted: David makes money and Violet spends it, but Violet also gets things done and keeps things moving smoothly: when David forgets Sally’s birthday, it’s Violet who gets a gift for her. But David is bothered by various lapses: there’s a dead gopher in the Jacuzzi that Violet says she’ll take care of but doesn’t, and at the start of the book he’s annoyed at Violet for not getting up quickly enough to go tend to Dot in the morning, even though he’s already awake and could presumably do it just as well. Violet, meanwhile, feels unattractive and unappreciated. So when Violet meets Teddy, an ex-junkie bass player who clearly takes an interest in her, she embarks on an affair with him, even though he’s got a girlfriend and she’s married and he’s possibly only interested in her husband’s money. Meanwhile, Sally decides that a soon-to-be-famous guy named Jeremy White is the answer to her problems: he’s going to be rich (he’s a sportswriter on the verge of a television deal), so she throws herself at him at a party, then proceeds to date him and wait for him to propose, despite the fact that she’s more than marginally annoyed by a whole lot about him, from his habit of wearing earplugs to how literal he is to the way he always goes to the same two restaurants and won’t deviate from his daily routine.
There are lots of funny moments in the telling of all this: there’s Sally’s “bring-a-new-guy-home” list, including such items as “Box of tampons: off the toilet” and “Candles: everywhere,” and how she buys a New Yorker to put on top of the gossip magazines on her coffee table so Jeremy won’t think she’s shallow (9-10). There’s Teddy trying to talk dirty on the phone with Violet, and being frustrated that she keeps trying to talk about other things: he keeps telling her to ask him some questions, and finally says “Oh, my fucking God, will you just ask me about my cock?” to which Violet says: “I don’t know. What’s it like?” (74). There’s Sally’s motto—”Control it or it controls you,” which is “from a bumper sticker she had on her three-ring binder in high school” (79). There’s the day when Violet’s schedule includes “Go down to garden. Dig cell phone out of hole” (she’s buried it to keep herself from checking if Teddy has called) (182). But there are sweet moments, too, including a paragraph-long sentence about all the things David likes about Violet, and a great exchange between Violet and Jeremy on Jeremy and Sally’s wedding day, and Violet’s eventual tenderness towards Sally, and David’s tenderness toward’s Violet.
I didn’t like This One Is Mine as much as I liked Where’d You Go, Bernadette, which I found quirkier and funnier and more charming, maybe partly because it had a sympathetic-first-person narrator, but This One Is Mine was compelling enough that the day before I finished it, I stayed up ’til midnight reading, and I’m glad I did.
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