Which Brings Me to You: a novel in confessons -- Steve Almond and Juliana Baggott

John and Jane are two of a kind.  Jane describes their type here:

I'm not sure there's a name for us.  I suspect we're born this way: our hearts screwed in tight, already a little broken.  We hate sentimentality and yet we're deeply sentimental.  Low-grade Romantics.  Tough but susceptible.  Afflicted by parking lots, empty courtyards, nostalgic pop music.

...

A wedding is the worst scenario.  We're usually single--surprising, I know--and least comfortable when socially required to say Awww, about kittens, sure, or greeting cards, and, in the present case, horrible toasts where weepy accountants say things like: To the happy couple.  Reach for the stars!  Weddings are riddled with socially enforced awwwing.  And so I'm pretty sure that I'll meet up with this guy at the bar, where we'll amuse the bartender, and we'll wander the golf course, talk pop culture, play the good game of cynicism.  I'm fairly certain we'll have sex awkwardly, like in his car or in the coat check once it's abandoned midway through "YMCA" and "Shout!" (though I might regret missing the opportunity of seeing middle-aged men rip their pants seams singing A little bit softer now, a little bit softer now), and later one of us will call the other one or not or we'll both think about it and we won't.  It's a little exhausting.

"A novel in confessions" is a perfect (and succinct!) description of the book -- John and Jane meet at a wedding, have an awkward and anticlimactic sexual encounter in the coat closet but still realize that they might have a real connection, so they begin to write letters.  Real letters, not email.  You know, with stamps?  Their letters are confessionals, chronicling their love lives up until and including the wedding. 

I was reminded of early Nick Hornby -- hilarious but still thoughtful and sometimes sensitive.  But Steve Almond and Juliana Baggott tended to be more raucous and lively and bawdy.  As I said, the book is an epistolary novel -- the letters are interconnected and both characters refer back to each other, responding and expanding, but each story/letter could almost stand alone.  I wouldn't try to read them out of order or anything, but it is a book that you can pick up and put down.  I believed in the characters, even if the situation was unlikely.

Comments

[Mindy]

Sounds interesting! I'll have to check it out. Thanks!