MARY JANE by Jessica Anya Blau

 

During the Covid times I had the hardest time reading new fiction. I just didn't want real life or anything remotely sad. Super-editor Jen Hart gave me this book over the summer and I loved the cover, but I didn't crack it because, well, it wasn't written by Maud Hart Lovelace or Janet Lambert. 

But then I did, and boy was I thrilled!

This book ticks so many of my boxes - good girl rebelling, fake celebrities, precocious - but not irritating - children, good Christians and bad Christians and smoking pot as a form of comfort. Oh! And beach getaways!

The premise is that Mary Jane is hired as a mother's helper by a family in her Baltimore 'burb in the 1970s. Her family life is cold and structured. Her home is immaculate and her family shows up at the country club and church with the regularity of a Swiss train. Her mom is raising her to be a Stepford daughter and her reputation needs to be shiny and polished at all times. 

The family Cone hires her to take care of their delightful daughter Izzy and she is ushered into a world where cleanliness is next to impossible and all meals are takeout. 

Izzy is the sort of child that could have come across as irritating with a less delicate writer, but she squirms delightfully across the pages. Sure, she is irritating, but in a realistic way and the bond that grows between she and Mary Jane feels real. 

Mr. Cone is a therapist and his client is Jimmy, a huge rock star who is struggling with addiction. Jimmy's wife Sheba seems like a cross between Cher and Marie Osmond (if you can believe it) and is far more wise and grounded than you'd think.  They are deeply in love and committed to Jimmy's recovery. Mrs. Cone has some issues with her own standing in the adult group and it makes for some uncomfortable and satisfying moments. 

The story unfolds beautifully. There is always the undercurrent of worry that Mary Jane is going to get caught in the lies she tells her mother. But the truth is that she is changing the lives of the people she works for as much as they are changing hers. She takes the lessons of cooking and cleaning that are so important to mer mom and uses them to teach the adults around her (and Izzy) that sometimes these traditional things are a form of self-care. 

And she is changed as well. She learns that "weird" people are often wonderful and that there are many ways of thinking about things. What I loved the most is the church-y bits. So often in fiction religion is shown as a crutch or a ball and chain. And certainly the rigid WASPy-ness of Mary Jane's family is damaging, but Jimmy and Sheba, with all their worldliness, make a good argument for the comfort and joy of faith. 

The culmination of the story is a week on the shore and the twists are always satisfyingly just shy of jarring. They will surprise, but they work. I felt that the ending was somewhat unexpected, but just right. I can't wait to forget the details of this book so that I can read it again and be delighted anew. For now, I will just tell everyone I know to read it! So go read it.