The Quality of Life Report

THE QUALITY OF LIFE REPORT was a lot of fun. The humor was outrageously funny and the transition the main character undergoes is unforgettable. The novel also had a ring of emotional authenticity to it which most authors miss in their writing. Daum is obviously plugged into her subject matter, and I'll look forward to reading more of her works in the future.

As someone who has felt the back-and-forth pull between the urban East and the semi-urban West, I loved this book. The satire, both of the New York sophisticates and the residents of "Prairie City," is totally on the ball. The mockery has a warm-hearted edge, though, and everyone comes in for it equally. I zipped through this book. It also made me go out and buy the author's essay collection, "My Misspent Youth." Also excellent.

Lucinda Trout calls her latest assignment "A Year in Provence meets Lake Wobegon Days". Her acerbic, gramatically-challenged boss calls it "Girl, Interrupted meets Deliverance". I'd say Meghan Daum's novel, The Quality of Life Report (Penguin Books, 2003) is Billie Letts channeling the spirit of Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed. At 29, Lucinda Trout is trying to live the hip life in the fast pace of New York City. Her life (as it were) consists of a tiny, rat-infested, over-priced apartment, a maddening boss, a cadre of shallow friends, and minor celebrity status as the lifestyle correspondent for a local talk show. Tired of reporting on thong underwear and yogurt, Lucinda jumps at her boss' offer to send her on assignment, reporting on methamphetamine addiction in the small Midwestern town of Prairie City. In Prairie City, Lucinda finds a beautiful simplicity she hadn't thought possible. With visions of Sam Shepard dancing in her head, she relocates to Prairie City to produce "The Quality of Life Reports" - talk show segments designed to sell New Yorkers a first-hand glimpse at life in the provinces. But life in Prairie City doesn't turn out to be as simple as it looks. Armed with only an idealized image of the community she has come to exploit, Lucinda falls for (and moves into a barn with) a local man, Mason Clay. Life begins to unravel as Lucinda contends with Mason's children, farm life, the harsh prairie winter, and finally the darker secrets that are driving Mason's life. In doing so, she confronts her own fantasies about "the quality of life" and comes to a more mature understanding of what's truly important. The novel bears an unmistakable resemblance to the author's own life. Once a reporter for The New Yorker, Meghan Daum picked up and moved to Nebraska (while Prairie City is never placed in a particular state in the text, the description certainly matches Nebraska closely). Living in a small farmhouse on the prairie, listening to the shrieking wind that once caused "prairie madness" during the westward emigration of the 19th century, Daum conceived Lucinda as a means of exploring our American identity in the geographical search for the good life. Without an author who understands and deeply loves Midwestern culture, this novel would have been an insulting, chick-lit failure. But Daum knows the Heartland well enough to pick on its quirks with the affection of a sibling, not the mockery of an outsider. This allows her to often be piercingly funny without demeaning nor lionizing the lives of her characters. In turn, her humor brings a tone of mirth to Lucinda's story that keeps Daum always above sentimentality and emotional manipulation of the reader. Even during the book's most serious moments, Daum maintains the elegance of perspective. She is compassionate with her characters, even as they fail, pick themselves up and stumble on, only to fail again later. They are quirky without losing humanity; funny without being affectedly

I loved reading the Quality of Life Report. It's the perfect summer book. *Funny*, sincere, witty...just great. Meghan Daum knows how to develop a character and she has developed a great one with Lucinda Trout. Part heroine, part anti-heroine--she is the perfect female lead. This book really made me ponder my own choices in life, and question whether or not I have an adventure in me. I highly recommend it.

I absolutely adored this book and the author's scenario of the good and the bad of living in the midwest. The comparisons of New York living and midwest living is probably right on and yet I laughed and I cried while reading parts of it. Now I want to read her previous book!