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A review by spygrl1
And Now You Can Go by Vendela Vida
2.0
I just finished "And Now You Can Go," the first novel by Vendela Vida, who I painstakingly established this morning via a Google search is married to Dave Eggers. I get her and Heidi Julavits confused. Also, Jonathan Safran Foer is married or engaged to someone who is a writer, but I've forgotton who. But not Vendela Vida. Is that her real name?
ANYCG is about Ellis, a 21-year-old art history graduate student new to New York City. Walking in the park one afternoon, she's accosted by a man with a gun. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't want to die alone. Ellis tries to cajole him with half-remembered poetry, tries to coax him back to the bookstore she just left. He seems to shake off his suicidal funk and runs away.
The strange event leaves her shaken and uncertain. She seems a somewhat quirky, drifting figure to begin with, and now she's unmoored. Seeking some kind of tether, she lets several unsuitable suitors swirl around her -- the ex-boyfriend who slammed his car into a tree when she decided to leave him, a former junkie who smells like soap, a raucous ROTC cadet. Ellis drifts home and accompanies her mother on a weeklong medical mission to the Philippines. Finally she is forced to confront her attacker and passes up the chance for revenge. It all goes back to her father, who inexplicably abandoned the family when she was a child and unceremoniously returned four years laters. Ellis tells Sarah that by the time he came back, she and her mother and sister had already forgiven him, and she found she had forgiven the park attacker as well.
In the end Ellis, the child of immigrants, sets out for Ireland to join Sarah.
The writing isn't irritatingly quirky, but the story is ultimately as insubstantial as Ellis seems to be. She's Jell-O in search of a mold. Does this girl have any goals? Without them, setting off to Ireland seems more like an attempt to find refuge than an effort attempt to get on with her life. After all, she's not setting out alone to study art in Paris, which might make sense; instead, she's going to hang out with her best friend. Maybe drink some Guiness, maybe exchange a flock of Irishmen for her posse of stateside admirers.
ANYCG is about Ellis, a 21-year-old art history graduate student new to New York City. Walking in the park one afternoon, she's accosted by a man with a gun. He wants to kill himself, but doesn't want to die alone. Ellis tries to cajole him with half-remembered poetry, tries to coax him back to the bookstore she just left. He seems to shake off his suicidal funk and runs away.
The strange event leaves her shaken and uncertain. She seems a somewhat quirky, drifting figure to begin with, and now she's unmoored. Seeking some kind of tether, she lets several unsuitable suitors swirl around her -- the ex-boyfriend who slammed his car into a tree when she decided to leave him, a former junkie who smells like soap, a raucous ROTC cadet. Ellis drifts home and accompanies her mother on a weeklong medical mission to the Philippines. Finally she is forced to confront her attacker and passes up the chance for revenge. It all goes back to her father, who inexplicably abandoned the family when she was a child and unceremoniously returned four years laters. Ellis tells Sarah that by the time he came back, she and her mother and sister had already forgiven him, and she found she had forgiven the park attacker as well.
In the end Ellis, the child of immigrants, sets out for Ireland to join Sarah.
The writing isn't irritatingly quirky, but the story is ultimately as insubstantial as Ellis seems to be. She's Jell-O in search of a mold. Does this girl have any goals? Without them, setting off to Ireland seems more like an attempt to find refuge than an effort attempt to get on with her life. After all, she's not setting out alone to study art in Paris, which might make sense; instead, she's going to hang out with her best friend. Maybe drink some Guiness, maybe exchange a flock of Irishmen for her posse of stateside admirers.