Mary Jane (2021) by Jessica Anya Blau

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Mary Jane (2021)

by Jessica Anya Blau

205 Hawthorne Road, Baltimore Maryland

Maryland:  5/9

 Mary Jane is the biggest hit I've read from the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America: 13 thousand plus Amazon reviews and a movie rights deal announced last year.  It's a coming-of-age novel from the POV of a teenaged girl living in suburban Maryland.  Her life changes forever when she takes a summer nanny gig for a "Jewish family"- still an exotic thing at that time in place (70's suburban Maryland).  The father of that family is a psychiatrist specializing in substance abuse disorder.  Mary Jane's life is turned upside down that summer when it is revealed that rock-star Jimmy and his tv-famous-musical-family wife Sheba (just "Sheba") are going to be living there for the summer while Jimmy tackles his heroin addiction. 

  The book is written relentlessly from the perspective of the eponymous protagonist- this was the Audiobook that broke me in terms of listening to adolescent female narrators in the Audiobook format- no more after this book!  Mary Jane, as you would expect, is a bright, curious girl with many questions left unanswered by her waspish housewife Mom and incommunicative country-club Dad.  Given the Baltimore location and the "Parents just don't get it" setting of the early 1970's, it was hard not to think of John Waters, specifically Hairspray, the first movie version.  Mary Jane was kind of a fun-house mirror (or not-fun house mirror, in the case of Mary Jane's parents home) of the same kettle of influences that spawned Waters' distinctive vision.

   Another book I was thinking about while listening to Mary Janes was another title from the 1,001 Novels: A Library of America project, The Dakota Winters,, which is another coming-of-age story with the introduction of a celebrity element.  The other title that keeps popping up is Daisy Jones and the Six, which I refuse to read, but understand is very popular. Seems to me the idea of weaving a celebrity element into one's otherwise normal-people coming-of-age story is a solid technique for generating marketplace interest in a manuscript that might otherwise not exist.  Editors will ask, "What does the protagonist LEARN from the celebrity element in your book?"