Growing up is hard to do

Espach, Alison. The Adults. New York: Scribner, 2011.

This is probably going to be one of my most boring posts in a while, because I returned The Adults yesterday and find today, without the crutch of the book to quote from, that I really don't have much to say about it. Nothing bad, but nothing glowing either, certainly not like the blurbs on the back cover.

The Adults is the story of an upper-middle-class Connecticut girl who grows from the adolescent observing her parents' friends at a party (adults say the darndest things!) to a grown woman who might (maybe) finally have things figured out. In the intervening ten or fifteen years, she has an on-again-off-again affair with one of her high school teachers. Does the fact that they still want to see each other years later make the statutory rape less of an issue? Certainly the relationship affects her choices in important ways, so at least it's not glossed over.

I read it quickly, and it was written in clear, interesting prose. That's not enough for me all the time. It took me five minutes of digging, but I finally found the transcript of a commentary I heard the other day on the radio, discussing why Americans don't deserve the Nobel prize in literature. That's a sweeping declaration I don't necessarily agree with, but the part about a trend toward narcissistic rather than imaginative fiction, the pitfalls of just going to a writing seminar and moving to Brooklyn to be a writer, resonated with me in reference to this book. I'd rather have the book I'm reading now (wait and see) over this one any day of the week, because I can't just go out and live it.

Rating: **