Source of book: Audiobook from one of my wife’s library accounts.
There is a bit of a story here about how I ended up listening to this book, which I had never heard of, by an author I also hadn’t heard of.
It started with my love of Rhiannon Giddens, bluegrass artist extraordinaire, and my desire to see her Pulitzer Prize-winning opera, Omar. (Orchestrated by Michael Abels) I missed the run in Los Angeles, but discovered (with the help of a friend) that it was running in San Francisco this month. Due to scheduling issues, the only day I could see it was a Sunday, squeezed between a Bakersfield Symphony Orchestra concert I was playing in Saturday night, and a Monday morning court case. Yeah, I’m a bit crazy.
Stay tuned for a writeup of the opera - it was really good and you should go see it if you can.
Anyway, with 9 hours of driving, the day after a concert, my wife and I needed an audiobook to melt the miles away and keep us alert. She pulled this one up, and we listened to it during the drive.
Nothing To See Here is a peculiar book. It is on the Magical Realism spectrum, but also almost leaning in the general direction of Chick Lit, despite being written by a man. The central idea is a pretty good metaphor, it pokes fun at both absurdly rich people who use their money to avoid consequences and at politicians who claim to have “sacrificed so much” to get where they are - while in fact it is others that have had to make those sacrifices. It has quirky characters, a bit of a sloppy-sappy ending, and is the kind of lighter read that isn’t exactly fluff either. It was an enjoyable read.
The protagonist and narrator, Lillian, has been muddling through her 20s at lousy jobs, with no future and no real vision for her own life. Her single mother isn’t much of a help, or particularly affectionate.
But then, she gets a strange request from her high school roommate, Madison. Will Lillian come for a job opportunity? As a favor?
Now, there is plenty of history between the two of them. Lillian had been a straight-A student and won a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school. She and Madison shared a room and became friends. However, near the end of the year, Madison gets caught with cocaine, and her entitled rich dude of a father bribes Lillian’s mother to get Lillian to take the fall for Madison.
Despite this betrayal (which, to be fair, was probably not in Madison’s ability to put right), the two of them remained pen pal friends for years.
Ah, but what about this….job?
Well, Madison is now married to an older senator, and serves as a campaign manager (which she is good at.) But not all is well.
It turns out that the senator’s second wife has recently committed suicide (after he left her for wealthy donor) leaving behind two kids that don’t really know their father.
And also, they tend to spontaneously combust when they get upset.
Guess who gets the job of taking care of them - and more importantly, keeping them from interfering with the senator’s career? You guessed it.
Caring for a pair of half-feral children with issues is hardly something Lillian expected. She never was into guys, and thought the idea of giving birth to their children pretty gross. But she finds herself loving these kids, and they find her to be a compassionate and involved caretaker.
There is more here, of course. Plenty of satire of rich people and politicians. Some sexual frisson between Lillian and Madison. Although I must say that I would never have put up with Madison’s shit as long as Lillian does. Lots of bad family dynamics involving pretty much every character. After all, one of the points the book makes is that none of us are really great parents; we are all flawed and muddling through at best.
The book isn’t funny per se, but it does have humorous moments. The humor is dry and tongue in cheek more than broad and easy.
The central metaphor made a lot of sense to me as a parent. When kids get emotionally overwhelmed, the results can sometimes feel like they have combusted. (I have stories that I am unlikely to ever tell about my kids, as I don’t want to embarrass them for being normal humans of a certain age.) What Lillian does with them is really a lot like what all good parents try to do: give their children tools to self-regulate. To help them feel secure and loved and thus anchored. It’s a tough job, particularly since parents are human too, and our ability to self-regulate or manage our own emotions in a healthy way is partly determined by what our parents did. (The cycle of trauma is real.)
For me, the true core of the story, the reason that it is compelling, is the way that Lillian, despite her own trauma, her own issues, her own lack of experience, insists that the children need to come first. She refuses to back down about taking the easy way out and institutionalizing them, or drugging them, or otherwise privileging adult comfort over the needs of the kids. And this isn’t to say that Lillian is a permissive caregiver. (Whatever that means. I find “nurturing” to be a better term - and most nurturing parents have high expectations when it comes to behaviors and chores and school.) Rather, Lillian respects and listens to the children. She invites them to help her find solutions, to work together toward their goals, and to see themselves as valuable. That’s just good parenting.
A quick online search about the book revealed that a significant number of those who didn’t like it took issues with it being “unrealistic.” So, yeah, children catching fire but not injuring themselves? Not real life. It’s either Magical Realism or a metaphor, and it works either way. The more logical complaints were about the issue of why Lillian even likes Madison, who is more irritating than likable. I figured that was the one where you suspend disbelief a bit.
Overall, I thought it was a fun listen, and well paced for driving.
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