Laura/Oppie/L'opps

And so it continues. This little new years goal, is actually happening. I’m reading more and more interesting books than I did last year, and I feel (as promised) like a smarter and more engaged person (with the exception of CRUSH IT, which was more just like reading Gary V’s blog).

My mom heard a review of Slow Motion on NPR, or possibly heard the author, Dani Shapiro, interviewed on Fresh Air or City Arts and Lectures or one of those other shows that makes you feel vaguely more intelligent than you previously through you were. It’s Shapiro’s memoir of her early twenties.

A brief synopsis: a Sarah Lawrence student, she falls for her best friend’s stepdad, and essentially becomes a kept woman. Lenny pays for all of her expenses, flies her around the world, gets her an apartment in Greenwich Village, etc etc. All this comes crashing down when her parents are in a horrible car accident, and she has to return to New Jersey, and come to terms with what she’s become.

This book was achingly sad, initially, but as she is more and more able to take care of her family, she becomes more and more able to take care of herself. It’s less a coming of age story, and more a coming out of a horrible place in life story, beautifully told.

I followed this up with A Home At The End Of The World, a novel by Michael Cunningham, the author of The Hours. Like The Hours, which I really loved, this was told from the perspective of different characters at different times — there wasn’t a consistent protagonist. Also, like the hours, there were bored housewives who gave up their dreams in order to find stability in married life, and a tragic gay man who dies of AIDS.

Still, I found myself not quite satisfied with this book. I wanted more from each of the characters — more exploration, more explanation, more of everything. It may simply be that I’m comparing it to The Hours too closely.