Anything for Jane

Cheryl Mendelson is a fantastic writer, I've greatly enjoyed all her books. I really hope she writes another book soon!

As someone who's half Latin American, I find it pathetic that most American books, when they deal with Latinos at all, resort to stereotype. So I was sorely disappointed to see that Mendelson's latest novel contained the Dominican housecleaner, her boyfriend who in desperation deals drugs, and her nephew--the smart boy deeply affected by the poverty in which he lives. Sigh. Roll of eyes. Still, I can judge judge a novel objectively, even if it contains such grating and clichéd ingredients. And I have to say that Anything for Jane is a better novel than Morningside Heights. Not that the latter was a bad book; on the contrary. I enjoyed reading it, but felt it was a little too cerebral--more brain than heart. Anything for Jane, while it doesn't shy away from ideas or political positions, is more powerful because we empathize with the characters, instead of simply reading about them with a certain detachment. Of course it helps that, in this case, the stakes are much higher than they were in Mendelson's previous book.

To me this book seems a little more contrived than the previous two books in her trilogy, and the author continues to do a lot of "talk" rather than "show". But her narrator's "talk" continues to be clever, often amusing, and easy to read. Altogether I enjoyed the book, and am sorry the series is finished. All these Morningside Heights characters were a kick. I hope the author continues to write novels.

ANYTHING FOR JANE is the final volume of Mendelson's MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS trilogy, and while not as out-and-out wonderful as the first, it's considerably better than the middle volume (LOVE, WORK, CHILDREN) and a delight in its own right. Fans of Cheryl Mendelson will especially love the first half of the book, and newcomers will be welcomed into the fold with fabulous Austenian touches such as this line, introducing the Braithwaite family's cleaning lady and her children: "The catastrophes that constantly threatened them were ordinary and typical, yet just as hard to bear as though they were full of fascinating novelty." The story centers on the coming-of-age of Jane, the eldest of the Braithwaite's four children, a gifted singer but indifferent and at times outright rebellious student. Jane has every advantage in terms of intelligent, sympathetic, and well-connected family, so of course is miserable and determined to steer her own course. Parallel to her story are the woes of the Dominican cleaning lady's family and those of several of the Braithwaites' friends. I'm not going to give away much about this novel, because it takes some surprising and outright unbelievable turns, but the quality of the writing and the absolutely unputdownable narrative are worth the implausible resolution. In MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, the neighborhood itself was a character, and this is really Mendelson's strength: shrewd analysis of the way the people in her world think and behave. She will remind you of Jane Austen, but with a darker outlook. Although things usually turn out well in Mendelson's world, happiness comes at a steep price. The one tremendous improvement ANYTHING FOR JANE makes over the earlier novels is that it has no villains (well there are two minor ones, but one repents and the other is excusable). In the two earlier volumes there were definite good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys were entirely too bad to be interesting. Mendelson takes on our legal system as the evil force in this novel, with much better results, especially as we see each person in the process playing an unwilling or unwitting role in perverting justice. It's something we can all recognize, and rings far more true than the wicked individuals of her previous books. Cheryl Mendelson is a superbly gifted writer, and I hope that with this trilogy complete, she'll dive into another novel at once. If you haven't read her yet, please give MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS first look. You will be richly rewarded.