Readers,
Hiatus from blogging for the last 3 weeks for no reason whatsoever. Wish I had a good reason, but I don't. In the meantime, a few things have happened: I've had a bucketload of fun consuming a truckload of down-market thrillers, the football (or as I say, Soccer) world cup has begun, and America got another year older. This last event was cause for an ex-patriot held celebration of epic proportions in Melbourne this weekend, lasting a total of eleven hours and ending with a large group of disheveled foreigners, debriefing over waffles at one of Melbourne's many hipster cafes. The party was an ode to many of the great things America is known for: cowboy hats (worn by a Swede and a Finn), Bud Light (sourced through thorough email communication with local liquor store owners), beer pong (consistently lost by me), and, above all else: enthusiastic, chaotic, revelry.
Which brings me to this weeks' book: The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine. The premise is this: a young woman and the socialite wife of a wealthy businessman begin an intense friendship in one of New York's most expensive suburbs. They dine out, attend galas, go yachting, drink cocktails, and, in general, have good, clean, American fun. Both women, however, are engaged in an elaborate fraud. The young woman, Amber, is out to steal the socialite's husband for her own - thereby realizing her American dream. And Daphne, the socialite - well, I won't ruin it all for you. Suffice it to say, "Drama ensues."
If this all sounds a bit silly to you, well, it's because it is. The Last Mrs. Parrish is probably technically a crime novel, but what it is most of all, is a fun little romp through the world of terrible people doing terrible things to one another. And not a very well written one at that.
Despite all this, readers, I think books like The Last Mrs. Parrish are worth reading, thinking and writing about. Not because they're good literature (they're not), not because they're important (they aren't), and not because they will make you view the world in a different way (they won't). The reason The Last Mrs. Parrish is worth reading, in my view, is because it's popular. It's fiction-for-fun. It's reading-for-relaxation. It's page-turners-for-pay. (Okay, I'm done).
A lot of people tell me that they don't like to read very much, so they try to only read "good books." When I ask them what they mean by that, they will almost always tell me about some rather dry non-fiction they've just consumed, or a seven-hundred-page classic that they've been working on for the last six years' worth of airplane rides. That's all good and well, and if you truly don't like reading, then it's probably a good strategy. But I worry that a whole lot of people who "don't like reading" have actually just never allowed themselves to read a fun book. They've convinced themselves (probably in line with what we were taught in elementary school) that reading is some sort of morally positive activity, as opposed to, say, watching television, or playing video games. For this reason, people think that fun books are somehow "cheating" or "not really reading."
Readers, I don't have very many good opinions, but I'll offer you this in any case: reading is no better than watching TV. You can watch a documentary, or you can watch Real Housewives. You can read Middlemarch, or you can read The Last Mrs. Parrish. But books, and reading, are a unique way to experience story telling - and a powerful way at that. And it's a shame to miss out on that experience because you're taking it more seriously than you need to. You shouldn't need to prove anything when you open a book. In fact, that's pretty much against the point. You're there to step into a different world. I don't care how silly or realistic or fantastic that world may be. It's your book. And if the world you want to experience is that of the elite Hampton beach bunnies - then go for it.
So I'm not going to write an elaborate review of The Last Mrs. Parrish today. Instead, I'll say this: if you haven't read a book for a while, or if you've gotten bogged down in the latest from Malcolm Gladwell (given to you, no doubt, by your well-intentioned father-in-law three Christmases ago) then do me a favor: go get your self a fun book, sit down on the couch, and treat yourself. See if you can have fun reading. See if it stops feeling like a chore.
Do you need some recommendations? No problem. I'm here for you. Try: Gone Girl, The Da Vinci Code, The Diary of a Bookseller, The English Spy, The Husband's Secret, Orphan X, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, The Hunger Games, Wild, The City and the City, The Girl on the Train. Go on. Live a little. I promise not to tell.
Readers, you might be thinking - why are you telling us to read if you really don't think it's any better (morally speaking) than watching TV or going to the movies? It's a good question. Thank you for asking. The reason is this: it's good for you. Not better for you, just good for you. I think it's good for all of us to experience the world through books. When we read, we are all alone and yet we can get closer to other people than any other form of story telling available to us. We enter worlds by ourselves, but then we get to see inside a character's head in a way that no other medium can offer - sustained, personal contact with another's thoughts. In this way, we are forced to confront and react to other people's lives without the pressure of doing so while being watched by others - the way we are in a cinema, or even on our living room sofas with our spouses or roommates. It's a special kind of communication.
So go pick up a book. Step into another world. Have some fun. And if that world just so happens to be the world portrayed by The Last Mrs. Parrish - then so be it. It's a gateway book. And, after all, who am I to judge?