Asian American Literature Fans

By Stephen Hong Sohn

You can always count of Gabrielle Zevin to tell a great story in a tone of voice that absolutely hooks you right away. Such is the case with Zevin’s latest publication Young Jane Young (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2017), which follows the masterfully plotted and narrated The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, which was one of my favorite reads just based upon the story. Let’s let B&N do some requisite work for us: “Aviva Grossman, an ambitious congressional intern in Florida, makes the mistake of having an affair with her boss--and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the beloved congressman doesn’t take the fall. But Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins: slut-shamed, she becomes a late-night talk show punch line, anathema to politics. She sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. This time, she tries to be smarter about her life and strives to raise her daughter, Ruby, to be strong and confident. But when, at the urging of others, Aviva decides to run for public office herself, that long-ago mistake trails her via the Internet and catches up--an inescapable scarlet A. In the digital age, the past is never, ever, truly past. And it’s only a matter of time until Ruby finds out who her mother was and is forced to reconcile that person with the one she knows. Young Jane Young is a smart, funny, and moving novel about what it means to be a woman of any age, and captures not just the mood of our recent highly charged political season, but also the double standards alive and well in every aspect of life for women.”

This plot synopsis reveals quite a lot of information in a way that the novel actually doesn’t. For instance, you don’t even realize for a bit that Aviva Grossman has taken a new name and that name is none other than the titular Jane Young. The “young” part of Jane Young is the fact that when Jane Young was younger, she was actually Aviva Grossman, if that makes any sense. The other element that is slightly overshadowed in this description is the voices of the other characters. The first section of the novel is actually given over to Aviva Grossman’s mother, Rachel. It details a series of bad dates that she’s been going on; this initial section also gives readers a sense why Aviva Grossman would want to move to Maine and recreate her identity, even if that meant completely cutting off her mother. While their relationship is hardly the worst mother-daughter combo I’ve read about, the problem there is connected to the micro-management that makes Aviva feels as if she cannot escape the shadow not only for her disgrace, but also the disapproving eyes of her mother. This burden is too much, so in some sense, it becomes simply easier for Aviva to start anew.

The problem, as the synopsis makes clear, is that her very bright daughter begins to put two and two together, realizing that her paternal lineage is cloudy. Seeking answers, Ruby sets the second half of the novel’s plot in motion, but Zevin always has us in her very capable storytelling hands: the father is someone who you may not expect and in many ways, the novel is less about this mystery than it is about the empowered Grossman women who will find ways to stand tall despite an ignominy that has been unfairly leveraged upon Aviva. I actually found the novel’s ending to be a little bit abrupt and had hoped Zevin would work a little bit more with the parental aspect of the storyline; there’s quite a lot left open there, but perhaps there’s room for a sequel, one that would be commanded by the very spirited character of Ruby.

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Review Author: Stephen Hong Sohn
Review Editor: Leslie J. Fernandez

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Leslie J. Fernandez, PhD Student in English, at lfern010@ucr.edu