“This is why you must love life: one day you’re offering up your social security number to the Russian Mafia; two weeks later you’re using the word calve as a verb.”
Maria Semple, Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
A couple of years ago, I saw a trailer for a new Cate Blanchett movie titled Where’d You Go, Bernadette? It looked mildly interesting, so I looked up more about it and discovered that it was based off of a book of the same name by Maria Semple. I shelved it on Goodreads and went on my way. It was only this past week that I finally got around to reading it, and I’m so glad I did.
Bernadette Fox is a creative genius living a humdrum suburban existence in Seattle complete with all of the irritating minutiae that comes with it. Her neighbors hate her, her house is crumbling, and her husband is concerned that she’s losing her mind. One day, she disappears, and her daughter sets out on a journey to find her. If that makes it sound like a run-of-the-mill quest plot, let me assure you that it’s not. In fact, the search only takes up the last little bit of the book. Most of the book is spent showing us how Bernadette got to this point.
The story is told mostly through letters and emails, which I usually hate. I just don’t like epistolary novels, but the format worked for this particular plot.
This book has several wonderful things going for it. First, it addresses the issue of mental illness in a way that shines light on it without making fun of it, downplaying it, or romanticizing it. It also shows how mental health isn’t an exact science. Throughout the book, I vacillated between being convinced that Bernadette was having a major breakdown to being sure that everyone was exaggerating that there was nothing wrong with her. Maria Semple did a great job of showing situations from various perspectives while maintaining that air of mystery around Bernadette. Even when you see what happened clearly, you’re never sure that you are seeing it clearly. It was fascinating and very well done.
I also liked the fact that, for once, a woman has a problem that has nothing at all to do with her body. In fact, I don’t remember female bodies being discussed much at all in this book. There is some talk of miscarriage and the resultant feelings of loss and depression, but I can’t think of a single instance of a woman in this book talking about her weight or her looks. Even the teenage girls talk about other things. There was also zero discussion about sexual assault. I’ve often remarked that it seems like rape sells in literature. If something bad happened in a woman’s past, it almost always seems like it ends up being rape. I was almost certain that that’s where this was heading, and I was delighted to find that that wasn’t the case. The fact that the focus of Bernadette’s discontent was her career instead of her body was simply a breath of fresh air.
The characters in this book almost universally behave badly; no one comes off looking all that great. That said, Where’d You Go, Bernadette? has a theme of second chances. People who you thought were beyond redemption turn around and surprise you. Everyone gets a shot to make things right, and they mostly take it. It made for an uplifting read.
However, there was one character who I can’t get behind. Soo-Lin Lee-Segal. I hated Soo-Lin. She was just the worst. A deluded, conniving, myopic, opportunistic little tramp. You could argue that she gets her redemption, too, but I didn’t accept it. If she were a real person I’d have to allow for the fact that everyone should get a second chance, but as a character in a book I’m free to hate her.
Anyway, you should give Where’d You Go, Bernadette? a shot. I think you’ll like it.
Happy Reading!
