Young Jane Young

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like today if you had decided to go to a different college, chose a different career, marrying a different person?  Have you ever thought about what makes us go in one direction or another.  How we choose when we reach in a fork in the road?  Young Jane Young, is the newest novel to come out of the imagination of Gabrielle Zevin.  These are the very subjects explored in this novel.  More to the point, Zevin shows us how far reaching those actions are.  Because when we make pick an option, it has repercussions on many people around us.

Written from the the perspective of three different characters in this story we learn the story of young love with a married man from three different viewpoints.   Each character has a very distinctive voice.  First from Rachel Grossman, Jewish mother, has retired to Florida.   She is a widow now, always looking for a new relationship.  She and her best friend  go out to meet men, or on dates with the men they have met.  There is always something wrong with the men they are involved with.  With a few Yiddish words and phrases to pepper her New York Jewish dialog, Rachel tells the story of her daughter's disgrace.

As you read each interpretation of the events Zevin does a great job of making each voice unique and fitting to the character.  The story told from the perspective of Jane Young, now in her forties, living in a small town in Maine with her daughter.  She has remade herself into a event planner.  She creates the perfect wedding for new couples starting out in life.  Jane explains this way, "...To be clear, even if it's not what I thought I'd do, I like planning weddings. I like the ceremony.  And people invite you into their lives on what they believe to be the most important day.  It's a privilege."    That is her standard spiel for how she ended up in Maine as a wedding planner.  Her young daughter, Ruby goes to school and assists her mother in the afternoons.  They have become powerful and yet beloved fixtures in the town. 

Ruby writes the story from her point of view.  Her section of the book is written like a child writing letters to her pen pal.  Well written emails carry on the one sided conversation with a pen pal across the ocean.  She writes about school and working with her mom.  She writes about finding out her mother's secret and feeling she just cannot condone her behavior and sit by quietly.  She needs to speak out.

We hear the details of the embarrassing stigma of Jane's past.  She tells the story of Aviva Grossman, political intern.  The mistakes she made and how it has affected her entire life since.  this is the most cleverly written section of the book.  Written in the style of a choose your path stories.  At the end of each short chapter there is a choice, would you choose to stay or go?  Would you break up or stay involved?  Would you turn right or left?  With each choice you turn to a different page.  Each choice offers a different ending to your story.  It shows the uncertainty of life.  How each avenue we choose leads to the next crossroads.  How our decisions affect our life and the those whose lives we touch. 

Gabrielle Zevin has connected all the women in this novel around the congressman in a complex way.  Se has presented each woman's story in a personal viewpoint so that you can relate and feel supportive of each of them.  Life and love are complicated and the lines of right and wrong are blurred.