Practical Jean (29 page)

Authors: Trevor Cole

BOOK: Practical Jean

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Practical Jean
's Parallels

WHEN I BEGAN WRITING
Practical Jean
, I had no idea that certain momentous events in the novel would presage events in my own life. But sure enough, after I wrote them, they happened.

Parallel number one: Do you remember the scene where Milt drives off in a hurry (it turns out that he's going to pick strawberries with Louise), and gets into a car accident, rear-ending a truck when his brakes failed? The day I finished the first draft of the novel, I decided to reward myself by going out and buying a new cameraâI love photographyâand even though it was a misty day and the roads were slick, I drove as if I was in a hurry. Sure enough, I rear-ended somebody when my tires lost traction on the rainy road.

Parallel number two: Jean has marriage trouble, and after she discovers that Milt is carrying on with Louise behind her back, she moves out of the house. This happened in my own life: A few months after I'd finished my first draft of
Practical Jean
, and while I was in the middle of doing rewrites, my own ten-year marriage ended.

Parallel number three: The most significant and eerie coincidence involves the foundation of the novel itself. The story of
Practical Jean
grows from the fact that the main character, Jean Horemarsh, has just lost her mother to a devastating abdominal cancer. Jean doesn't say specifically which organ was afflicted, but by the way she “would move her hand around her middle, a bit off to the side” when she talked about her mother's illness, it was presumed to be cancer of the liver or pancreas.

About a month after I began writing
Practical Jean
, with the death of Jean's mother well established, my own mother, Hilda, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was a blow for her and for our family, but because the cancer had been caught fairly early, I was convinced she would live well into the future. Perhaps I was in denial. But that denial allowed me to continue writing Jean's story without dwelling on my own mother's possible fate.

My one real concern was that I assumed my mother would one day read the book, and it didn't seem to me that a story that discussed aging and painful deathâeven in the service of comedyâwas the sort of thing my mother should have to think about. But I knew she would insist on reading the book, so I eased my fears by reminding myself that my mother had a terrific sense of humor, and by continuing to fool myself about where her illness was headed.

Although my mother survived until after I finished writing the novel, she didn't live to see or read the published book. Again, like Jean with Marjorie, I was at my mother's side when she died. Perhaps the most telling and lasting parallel between
Practical Jean
and my own life is the impact a mother's death has on her child. I don't see myself going off the deep end the way Jean does in the book, but I have a greater understanding now of why she did.

Read On

Trevor Cole's Favorite Novels

T
HE BOOKS I REMEMBER
and come back to again and again are the novels that manage to combine humor with something serious. In other words, they recognize that the world we live in is a strange mixture of the weird, appalling, beautiful, and hilarious.

Here are five seriously funny novels that influenced my own writing:

The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen

The language is rich and smart. The panorama is vast. The book's treatment of its subjectâsociety's hunger for the quick score and the easy fixâenriches our understanding of our world. And it is
hugely
entertaining. It manages the miracle of treating its characters with enormous empathy and yet also as objects of fun.

Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie

Rushdie's masterpiece tackles a big and serious subjectâthe birth of a tragic nationâand so it could have been weighty and self-important. But it is written in a boisterous, informal style that accentuates the absurdities at every turn.

Whale Music
by Paul Quarrington

This Canadian novel, about a washed-up, mentally unstable musician named Des Howell who is clearly modeled on the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, combined a deep understanding of human nature and scenes of farcical comedy. As you read Des's story you laugh at him, but you never stop caring about him. That was very much on my mind as I was writing my first novel
Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life
.

Vernon God Little
by DBC Pierre

Here's the story of a teenage boy who may have just massacred sixteen students in his high school, Columbine-style. How can that be funny? Most people would be appalled at the idea. But
Vernon God Little
, which won the Man Booker prize in 2003, is very funny. The title page includes a subtitle: “A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death.” And if you think about it, it's when we're closest to death that we may need laughter the most.

The Shipping News
by Annie Proulx

This story, about a loser named Quoyle searching for a place to hide or belong, is full of melancholy, and yet it also ripples with humor. Proulx's imagery is famously poetic, but she mines the setting of Newfoundland for funny character names (Jack Buggit, Diddy Shovel) and colorful language. And she finds ways to make ordinary things sound absurd: “He fell into newspapering by dawdling over greasy
saucisson
and a piece of bread.”

Praise for
Practical Jean
and Trevor Cole

“Should be a starred pick for every book club. . . . [
Practical Jean
] combines diamond-cut social satire with thoughtful contemplations of friendship's burdens, meaning, and purpose.”

âGlobe and Mail
(Toronto)

“Props to Trevor Cole. He's not afraid to take a few risks. His sly satire, short-listed for the Writers' Trust fiction prize . . . could have swung wildly from melodrama to comedy. . . . But Cole keeps complete tonal control to the end. . . . [He] writes with tremendous energy.”

âNow
(Toronto)

“In her talent for self-justification, Jean rivals Vladimir Nabokov's Humbert Humbert.”

âThe Gazette
(Montreal)

“A jaw-dropping, near-perfect satire.”

â
Chatelaine
magazine

“
Practical Jean
is that rare thingâa novel that tackles a deep, dark philosophical question through seemingly banal events and leaves the reader pondering for days after reading the last page.”

âVancouver Sun

“Cole belongs to the Truman Capote school of stylists; his prose is clear as a mountain stream.”

âToronto Star

“A clever and timely novel with plenty of bite.”

âTelegraph-Journal
(New Brunswick)

“With writing like this, Trevor Cole is quickly gaining a reputation as a major talent, deservedly so.”

âEdmonton Journal

“Trevor Cole is emerging as a master of obsessive-delusional-neurotic-tragicomic fiction. . . . Cole's prose is so confident, compassionate, and clear that it draws out that neurotic admission: I wish I'd written that.”

âLiterary Review of Canada

“Good writing declares itself immediately. How comforting for a reader to knowâafter only a few pages in Mr. Cole's companyâthat he is in such safe hands.”

âGovernor General's Literary Awardâwinner David Gilmour

“An intriguing new voice in fiction.”

â
Calgary Herald

Also by Trevor Cole

The Fearsome Particles

Norman Bray in the Performance of His Life

Credits

Cover design and illustration by Andrea Cardenas

This book was originally published in Canada in 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.

PRACTICAL JEAN.
Copyright Â© 2010 by Trevor Cole. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

P.S.â¢ is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-0-06-208250-3

EPub Edition Â© SEPTEMBER 2011 ISBN: 9780062082534

11Â Â 12Â Â 13Â Â 14Â Â 15
ID/RRD
10Â Â 9Â Â 8Â Â 7Â Â 6Â Â 5Â Â 4Â Â 3Â Â 2Â Â 1

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