Why Did I Ever

author
Mary Robison

plot synopsis in 50 words or fewer
Money--an overly-neurotic, thrice divorced, mother of two grown children and one sometimes lost, sometimes found cat named Flower Girl--attempts to keep her life and the lives of her chilren in moderate working order, while at the same time maintaining her job as a hollywood script doctor.

what really matters
The sharp, wicked, biting, dry, brilliant, innovative humor with which this story this story is told. Why Did I Ever is unspeakably funny. Robison never, not for a second, lets up--and christ, will you be glad. Told in 572 short, terse, highly-stylized sections, Robison controls not just what you read, but how you read it. The result is a book that resonates like a well-tuned instrument.

what i thought
God damn, is this book good. Plot synopsis is of zero use. What moves Why Did I Ever from good to brilliant is Robison's use of well-wrought sarcasm to convey a deeply moving, extremely poignant story. In her clipped style, not one word is wasted. The result is a novel--told with the barest bones of language--that says to the reader: Yo! Focus. I am the center of your universe. You cannot look away. And, you don't, you can't. Robison pushes the envelope with this book--do not, under any circumstances, miss it.

Here's a little taste of the fun
(Hollis is a friend of Money's.)

We've moved over into my dining room. Hollis is backed up against the wall, measuring his height and marking over his head with a pencil. "You go next," her says to me. "It's fun to do!"
“Can’t just now,” I tell him.
He’s giving me a cool look and preparing a criticism.  He carefully pockets his pencil,
eases into the chair, stirs the green tea in his steaming cup.  “I don’t think—” he begins.
I say, “Well, no you don’t, do you?  You don’t think this!  You don’t think that!
Don’t relay any more thoughts to me if you do not have them.”

who else loved this book (or at least, say they did)
Francine Prose ("Tense, moving, hilarious...a dark jewel of a novel.")

Cathleen Schine ("Robison finds the exact place where language and existence intersect...all of Robison's minimalist genius is at work here.")

Donna Seaman, Booklist ("A writer with switchblade wit....Robison's incandescent soliloquy on the absurdity of existence hones fiction to a new and exhilarating measure of sharpness.")

other things this author has written
Tell Me
Oh
An Amateur's Guide to the Night