Women's Lives and Relationships Genre

Synopsis

Bernadette Fox has had an incredible life.  In the early 90s, she and her brilliant husband, Elgin Branch, were a hot, young, L.A. couple with the whole world at their feet. Bernadette's architecture garnered a cult following for being "green" before green architecture was a thing, and won her a MacArthur Genius Grant.  Elgin gave "the 4th most watched TED talk of all time".   Bernadette's eccentric personality and seemingly endless energy endeared her to all who met her.  But that was all before "the event".  Something awful happened to Bernadette on the heels of her success, and she and Elgin retired to Seattle so he could start working for Microsoft, and she could ostensibly rehab the crumbling, defunct "home for girls" they purchased.

Once they hit Seattle, however, things really start to go downhill.  Elgin's job becomes all-consuming, and Bernadette suffers a devastating series of miscarriages.  She finally manages to carry a child to term, and their daughter Bee is born.  But Bee has a congenital heart defect, and requires multiple surgeries very early in life.  Bernadette throws herself into caring for Bee, and suddenly 14 years have passed.  Bee is a student at an affluent prep school, and Bernadette now puts most of her energy into despising the mothers of the other children at the school, whom she calls them "gnats", for their annoying behavior, instead of fixing up their estate, which is now in total disrepair. It is easy to join Bernadette in her hatred for these parents, one of whom seems to live to endlessly torment Bernadette.  Audrey Griffin, mother of a derelict child, and neighbor of Bernadette, is a stereotypical helicopter mom.  White, affluent, clueless, and spoiled, she seems to have nothing better to do than to mess with Bernadette at every turn.  She and her friend Soo-Lin Lee-Seagal spend hours emailing gossip back and forth, obsessing about the crazy Bernadette.

In the meantime, Bernadette's seemingly boundless energy was, as it turns out, was quite possibly an upswing of mania in what seems to be something like bipolar disorder, and the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction.  She has descended into paranoid and reclusive behavior.  Her only "friend" is Manjula, her virtual assistant in India.  When Bee gets straight As and requests a promised trip to Antarctica, Bernadette quietly starts to freak out, not sure she can manage a trip half way across the world.  She begins to write long, revealing, emotional emails to  Manjula, in which we learn about her tragic past and what has brought her current state of mind.

While it is not immediately obvious, this epistolary (mostly email) novel is told from the point of view of Bee, after the fact.   Think of it as an archive of the correspondence surrounding the events of the story the Bee has gathered and arranged for us.   What makes it truly remarkable is the astounding character arcs that take place, even with the sometimes disjointed feeling that  can occur when epistolary novels are not done well.   Just when you think you've got all these people pegged, from Bernadette to Elgin to the awful mothers from school, the author turns everything on its head.  What starts out as a humorous look into the antics of bored, rich housewives becomes a story of love and redemption.  It examines with both biting wit and utter sympathy the isolation of modern motherhood, the trappings of affluence, and the struggles of mental illness.  In the end, it is the women, as well as Bee, who save each other, by never losing hope, and by throwing out all assumptions they have made of one another and of themselves. 


Elements of Women's Lives and Relationships Genre

Tone/Mood- According to Joyce Sariks in Reader's Advisory to Genre Fiction, "titles in this genre offer an intimate glimpse into the lives of protagonists".  This is absolutely true for this book.  The question Where'd You Go, Bernadette? is layered with multiple meanings.  Bernadette spends the entire book disappearing from things. She left L.A., dropped out of the avant-garde architecture scene, quit participating in her daughter's school, tried to avoid going to Antarctica, then ostensibly escaped to Antarctica, vanished through a bathroom window from an intervention-and those were just the physical disappearances.  She also spent a lot of time emotionally hiding.  And while this could easily be considered a humorous novel,  it is not shallow.  The humor is perforated by tragedy and loss, making the tone as complex as the characters themselves.

Characterization- As I mentioned before, the character arcs in this story are spectacular. At first, it seems we are dealing with almost archetypes instead of actual characters.  The women, apart from Bernadette, are characterized as your standard, gossipy bored housewives, with a stern school administrator thrown in for good measure.  Even Bernadette herself, with all of her eccentric behavior, seems like an all-too-familiar sketch of a once-great artist gone insane and reclusive. It is Bee who is the most three-dimensional from the start, but so much of the book is told from her perspective that we even have a hard time getting to know her at first.  The narrative and story drive the plot forward for some time.  But then about halfway through the book, we start to see these women grow, change, and appreciate each other's struggles in a new way, and it is utterly satisfying and quite emotional.  Although Elgin is a main character and quite essential to the story, Bernadette, Audrey, and Soo-Lin go through remarkable transformations, within themselves and in relation to each other.  And Bee, whose search for her mother that drives the last quarter of the book, grows into a young woman, desperate to connect with her lost mother, while she struggles with the blame she places on her father for what has taken place.

Story Line- The author quite deftly deals with mental illness and the havoc it can wreak on the lives and relationships of the ill and the people around them.  It also addresses the particular challenges women can face when dealing with illness and loss, because of the societal image of the "hysterical woman" that can follow them, especially when their actions are misunderstood and blown out of proportion.  It is the rippling effects of all of this that moves this story forward, as the struggles of these women are revealed slowly through their letters (emails) to each other and to other people.  There is definitely a "domestic" quality to the story line, but a dysfunctional kind of domestic.  Bernadette's domestic situation reflects her inner chaos and turmoil.  Audrey, who strives for perfection, even if it is only on the surface, has her home literally destroyed.  It is only then, when she is freed from the trappings of her own domestic life, that she is free to let go of all of her shallow concerns, and ends up helping, maybe even saving, her greatest female rival.

Frame/Setting- This story takes place almost exclusively in Seattle, and Bernadette hates Seattle.  As everyone knows, the weather is mostly rain, and rain and mud play an integral part of the story.  Not only does the weather and the city reflect the mood of Bernadette, it almost antagonizes her. At the risk of revealing too much about the story, mud and rain create a stunning turn of events that changes everyone's lives!

Style/Language- As an epistolary novel, but there are several characters who are writing.  So in that sense, the language and style varies a great deal.  Bernadette writes rambling, poetic letters that are personal, revealing, and sometimes hilarious.  They reveal her past, her insecurity, her paranoia and her obsessions, but they also give us an intimate look at how she feels about her husband, her daughter, and her work.  Soo-Lin's letters are perfunctory, and almost robotic, but she serves as an antagonist to Bernadette, as does Audrey.  It is Audrey's letters that have the greatest amount of intrigue and change over the course of the story.  Bee, as a highly precocious girl, writes beautifully, and it is through her letters and narration that we see her complicated feelings towards her parents.




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