Dear Edward (2020) by Ann Napolitano

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Dear Edward (2020)

by Ann Napolitano

West Milford, New Jersey

New Jersey: 5/14

   Here is an observation about the psycho-geography of New Jersey:  It is the area "west" of the New York City monolith where people go to break semi-free of the high pressure environment and replace their fifth story walk-up apartments with spacious ranch-style homes on cul-de-sacs.  This psychic landscape was made possible by the automobile, and it is worth noting that any Jersey-ite and light out from any point in New Jersey and simply drive west and end up in California.  There is also a southern section for the Philadelphia/Trenton era that serves as a mirror to the northern New York focused area, and then there is the rest, which includes some tourist areas and farm country.

  Dear Edward is the northern most of the northern New Jersey cohort, taking place on the border between New Jersey and the beginning of the southern reaches of upstate New York. It is clearly suburban environment, and the ties to New York are dim.  Dear Edward is a cross between domestic lit and a thriller.  Edward is a young boy who is the sole survivor of a domestic flight that goes down over the United States flying between New York and Los Angeles.  He has to go live with his (childless) Aunt (mother's sister) and her husband in the suburbs of New Jersey.  None of these characters are interesting, from the baby-hungry Aunt who has suffered a miscarriage, to her husband, a nerdy stock character out of touch with his feelings, to Edward himself.  A real significant moment comes when Edward sneaks into his Uncle's private study and finds racks full of...western novels by Louis L'amour. Sheesh!

  I listened to the 13 hour audiobook- huge mistake since the whole book is portions told from a variety of perspectives of the passengers on the airplane before they die alternated with chapters about Edward's life after the crash.  As interesting as life as a sole-survivor of an airplane crash might sound, Edward manages to bring no interest to his part in the book. One minute into the Audiobook, you know we are going to be listening to sad Edward mope around for the rest of the book.

  There is some relief in the portions narrated by the passengers on the doomed flight, but I thought it was pretty risible that all of the profiled characters who were people FROM the New York area who were ALL travelling to Los Angeles for various reasons having to do with work or family.  Anyone who has ever been on New York to LA flight knows that many, if not a majority of the people on that flight are people from LA going back there, and that another huge group is foreign tourists, none of whom, apparently, were on this flight.

  Like many of the low-stakes works of domestic fiction on the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America list, Dear Edward has an almost claustrophobic level of myopia about the world it portrays.   I would also add "children suffering from extreme PTSD" as another category on the list of the dim-bulb narrators of American fiction: Nothing wrong with being poor or even illiterate but it does make an interesting book harder to write.