“All We Ever Wanted Was Everything” by
Janelle Brown, Random House $14
Reviewed By Bob Hodges
Silicon Valley, just before the economic troubles, bred selfishness and smugness. We start the day with Janice Miller. It’s a beautiful June morning and all seems well. Janice is almost 50, lives in a beautiful house, not quite a “McMansion.” Her husband, Paul, arose early to take care of business. She hears on the radio that his company has just made several million dollars in newly issued stock.
Elated, Janice cleans, shops, cooks and gets ready for a big evening of celebration. A couple of things go wrong: Her tennis partner does not turn up; her husband does not answer his cell phone. Not to worry, she thinks, she has had a very fortunate life.
Then disaster strikes. A messenger brings a letter from Paul, saying he is suing her for divorce, now that he has a chance for real passion in his life. It turns out that his new woman is Beverley, Janice’s missing tennis partner.
As Janice’s life falls apart, I found myself reflecting on the movement for same-sex marriage rights. Here is the heterosexual family, once so smug and “perfect,” that now is in a real mess. Before the gains of the LGBT community, the nuclear family seemed the enemy. There were many stories about gay men and lesbians who were made miserable by “the closet” and the pursuit of normalcy through heterosexual marriage and family. Yet, even if the heterosexual family was not cruel and destructive, it was square. It ate dinner too early, knew nothing about the fabulous world of fashion and the arts, and certainly lacked all the sophisticated psychological insights that LGBT people embrace.
However, as I read on, the book seemed hipper than I had thought. We meet Margaret, Janice’s daughter, a woman in her late 20s who edits a militant, feminist magazine she calls Snatch. Janice’s sister calls her to come home and help with their mother. I began to sympathize with the three women, struggling with the father’s abandonment, career failure and drug use.
Finally, I became sympathetic; concerned with characters I had tried to write off as examples of heterosexual failures.
This book is a fast read. You will enjoy it.