The Red Book (41 page)
Authors: Deborah Copaken Kogan
If and when I ever get truly back on my feet, I’d like to return to the stage one day, in whatever capacity I can. I realize how much I miss the thrill of performing, of creating a character, of moving an audience to laughter and tears. Clay Collins keeps telling me if I can “git my ass on up to Seattle,” he’ll give me a role, sight unseen. One day, I hope to have the time and means to take him up on this.
I have not found love again, but neither have I given up hope. I believe there could be someone out there, just waiting for me to find him under a rock. But just to hedge my bets? If you happen to know this person or the location of that rock, you’re more than welcome to e-mail me the details. Or if you happen to be that person? Meet me at the Twenty-Fifth. I’ll be there, with bells on.
If I’ve learned anything in the twenty-five years that have transpired between graduation and today it is this: I am stronger than I thought I was and weaker than I’d hoped to be, and in between those two extremes is a little thing called life.
This book is a work of fiction. I invented the plot, made up the scenes, crafted each sentence myself. Part of me—let’s call her Attila—wanted to skip over this section and take sole credit.
But!
Attila has an alter ego we’ll call Eugenie. Eugenie is less of a megalomaniac, more of a team player. She knows that none of us, not even the most hermitic of writers, lives or works in a void. We are inspired, buttressed, moved, informed, and perhaps even loved by others, and it is through this interaction with humanity, in ways both overt and subconscious, that we take a completely fabricated story and transform it, if we’re lucky, into something true.
We ask the various humans in our orbit a bunch of annoying questions, even though Google overflows with answers, because Google isn’t a person. Oh sure, Google can tell us all about investment banks and the deals they make and where their offices are located on an interactive map, but it can’t tell us what it was like to be a female employee of one of those behemoths during the boom years (thank you, Sharon Meers). Or how it felt to be a fourteen-year-old kid at the St. Paul’s School in the early eighties (thank you, Michael Karnow). Or to punch the Spee Club as a Harvard sophomore (thank you, Josh Berger). Or to represent an inmate at Guantánamo (thank you, Sarah Havens Cox).
So, while tattooed Attila sits in her corner and sulks, Eugenie would like to step forward in a yellow sundress and pearls to offer sloppy kisses and hugs of gratitude to the aforementioned angels as well as to:
Ellen Archer and Barbara Jones, for believing—accurately, as it turns out—that plying an author with wine would shake out the seeds of a story; Elisabeth Dyssegaard, for providing the hothouse and soil; and Jill Schwartzman, for expert watering and pruning;
Laura Tzelepoglou and Sotiris Chtouris, for swapping their house in Mytilini, with its desk overlooking the Aegean, for our house in Harlem, with its desk overlooking a boarded-up building;
Kammi and Brad Reiss, for donating that snowy week away from my family at the Franklin Hotel, thus providing the time, space, and free cappuccinos to reach the end;
David McCormick, for treating his client to a fancy ham and cheese sandwich at Gramercy Tavern after the manuscript was finished;
Tad Friend, for continuing, year after year, to be my first and shrewdest editor, of both life and words;
Abby Pogrebin, for too many things to mention;
Patrick Dooley, for his insider’s view on the joys and hurdles of running a nonprofit theater and for a judicious “break it down!” when I was stymied by plot;
Charles Ferguson, whom I don’t know but wish I did, for making the documentary
Inside Job
, which I’d make required viewing, were I king;
The Hyperion/Voice backup singers: Claire McKean, for allowing me to stet an italicized
schtupping
, which, ironically, has to be italicized in this sentence, but never mind; Laura Klynstra, for designing a beautiful jacket for this baby while still recovering from the birth of hers; Karen Minster, for the spot-on look of these pages; Christine Ragasa, for her unflappable hand-holding; Bryan Christian, for sharing both his chocolate chip cookie and his marketing savvy; and Jon Bernstein, for his status updates, tweets, and Instagrams d’Italia;
Eric Alterman, Abigail Asher, Adam Gopnik, Sarah Havens Cox, Marni Gutkin, Paul Kogan, Patty Marx, Sharon Meers, Martha Parker, Robin Pogrebin, Kammi Reiss, Dani Shapiro, Ayelet Waldman, Meg Wolitzer, and Jennifer Copaken Yellin, for early reads and/or offers of blurbs;
Isabel Gillies (as Addison), Julie Metz (as Mia), Susan Fales-Hill (as Clover), and Rebecca Pearsall (as Jane) for agreeing to appear, gratis, in the book trailer; Agustin McCarthy, for making it fun;
The Harvard Class of 1988, for consistently and collectively writing, every five years, the most engrossing book on my nightstand;
Jacob and Sasha Kogan, for rewriting Trilby’s IMs into accurate teen shorthand and for putting up with their mother’s imperfections; their baby brother Leo Kogan, for being not only the bravest four-year-old in Children’s Hospital but also the disco ball around which we dance;
Paul Kogan, again, always, for the two-decade, never-dull ride on love’s roller coaster;
And finally, to Attila and Eugenie, for constantly duking it out.
Deborah Copaken Kogan
is the author of
Between Here and April
, a novel, and
Shutterbabe
, her bestselling memoir about her years as a war photographer. Her photographs have been published in
Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, L’Express
, Libération, and
GEO
. She has written for
The New Yorker, The New York Times, Elle, O: The Oprah Magazine, More, Slate
, and
Paris Match
, among others. She lives in Harlem, New York, with her husband and three children.
Introduction
Addison, Mia, Clover, and Jane are all graduates of Harvard’s class of 1989. Every five years, each class member is asked to write a small essay for inclusion in the red book, a report bound and delivered, just prior to reunion, to alumni from that year.
For the most part, none of these women need the red book to stay up-to-date on each other’s lives. Addison, the trust-fund-baby-cum-hippy-artiste, remains unhappy in her uninspired marriage and unsupported role of parent to three disengaged children. Mia, a mother of four with a husband nearly two decades her senior, is busy relearning what it means to parent an infant while guiding her eldest through the college admissions process, closing her eyes to financial woes her husband is clearly keeping from her. Clover, newly laid off from her lucrative Wall Street job, keeps close tabs on her dwindling bank account but is more concerned with becoming pregnant by her husband, who refuses to acknowledge his apparent infertility. Jane has temporarily returned to the U.S., after decades spent overseas, to deal with her mother’s estate; she struggles both with her mother’s recent death and with the equally fresh pain of her partner’s infidelity.
When the four show up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, families in tow, to celebrate their twentieth reunion, the weekend’s events result less in reconnecting than in a reevaluation of their lives as they round the corner of middle age. While Harvard’s red book regularly highlights what everyone has accomplished, this reunion of classmates reveals much more about what’s missing from each of their lives. In the end, it is only by finally recognizing and owning these missing pieces—disappointments, failures, dreams too-long deferred—that these women are able to make the necessary changes to move on with their lives and find, if not happiness, then a close facsimile thereof.
Discussion Questions
1.
The Red Book
is peopled with a broad range of characters. Discuss how successfully you feel the author wrote from the point of view of individuals of so many different social and financial backgrounds, sexual orientations, ethnic identifications, and religious beliefs. Consider, too, that Kogan wrote from the point of view of people of both genders as well as from vastly different generations. Were all of her characters well developed and believable? Was there a character you felt could have been portrayed differently? (And to what purpose?)
2.
Both Addison and Mia studied creative arts in college but stopped pursuing their respective fields professionally once they were married and began having kids. Do you feel their stories ring particularly true? Would it have been possible for either one to have led a balanced life while pursuing her passion, and if so, which one(s) and why? Compare their professional trajectories over two decades with those of Jane and Clover, both of whom built successful careers after Harvard. Out of them all, which one, if any, made the wisest decisions and compromises? How large a role did fate, chance, and history (i.e., a massive recession, the shrinking of the newspaper industry) play in each of their narratives, and to that end, how would this book have been different if the author chose to write about the twentieth reunion of the class of 1985? What about the class of 1975?
3.
Consider the different biases and aversions these characters have: Bucky’s parents’ racism; Gunner’s anti-Semitism; Mia’s prejudice against Trilby’s angsty teenage appearance; Addison’s aversion to the idea of same-sex couples raising children; Jane’s harsh judgment of Bruno and her mother for their respective infidelities. What kind of comment does
The Red Book
make about our worst fears, prejudices, and biases and the ways we let them govern our lives? What does it say about the way (and the reasons) we change?
4.
Similarly, examine some of the more morally or ethically ambiguous actions taken by the novel’s protagonists: Addison’s willful ignorance of/inattention to $100,000 in parking fines; Gunner’s rampant narcissism and self-centeredness; Clover’s attempt to be impregnated by her married ex-sweetheart; Danny’s inability to empathize or sympathize with Clover during emotionally difficult times; Mia’s rash spending; Jonathan’s one-night stand with his producer; Bruno’s infidelity; Jane’s relatively unforgiving stance with those she loves (at least for most of the novel). What can we learn from these characters about the role morals and ethics play in our lives?
5.
While sex is not the only culprit behind the marital discord in these romantic relationships, it plays a large role in the dynamics of its characters’ lives. For instance, Gunner blames much of his distance from Addison on her refusal to sleep with him, while Addison tells herself that she refuses to sleep with him because he won’t help with the child-rearing. Is that the whole story? On the opposite end of the spectrum, Mia and Jonathan—while troubled, but not irrevocably so—enjoy a healthy sex life and genuine physical attraction for one another. Consider the way this novel portrays the importance of sex in a long-term relationship, and discuss whether or not the lessons learned by these characters ring particularly true. (And, based on the events in the novel, why?)
6.
The Red Book
also highlights our human tendency to compare ourselves with peers and to judge the ways and means by which we have lived our lives. The characters in the novel do this every five years via Harvard’s red book, and also through social Web sites like Facebook. What comment is Kogan making about our compulsion to compare ourselves with others? How much do you, like these characters, keep track of what your peers from high school and/or college are doing/accomplishing? What helpful effects, as well as harmful ones, can come from such comparisons?
7.
This novel also explores, to some extent, mother-daughter relationships—through Jane’s grief over her mother’s recent death, Trilby’s dissatisfaction with Addison’s permissive parenting, and Mia’s recollections of her own frustrated mother. Discuss the ways in which Jane’s discovery of her mother’s infidelity challenges Jane’s perception of her mother and marriage in general; the ways in which the sections narrated from Trilby’s point of view avoid typical depictions of teenage rebellion; and the ways in which Mia’s life is both a mirror and a foil to that of her mother’s. What does each relationship reveal about the power, influence, and pitfalls of the mother-daughter connection?
8.
Consider Trilby, Thatcher, and Houghton, as well as Max, Eli, and Joshua, and how they represent the marriages that created them. Discuss how Gunner and Addison have damaged their children by avoiding the problems in their marriage, particularly when compared to Mia and Jonathan’s children. Also, think about the ways in which Mia and Jonathan’s children are perhaps less prepared for life’s harder knocks because of the security and lack of family tension in their upbringing. How do you think Eli and Joshua will be affected once their financial and emotional welfare is threatened by Jonathan’s untimely death? In what ways would Trilby, Thatcher, and Houghton be better equipped to handle such tragedy? (Or would they?)
9.
While we don’t often find ourselves inhabiting the male perspective in this novel, we do get sections narrated by Max, Jonathan, Bucky, and Bruno. What kind of comment does Kogan make on men and their changing roles as spouses and parents in contemporary times? Consider how Danny and Gunner, who are generally unsupportive of their spouses (and, purposely so, underdeveloped as characters), are representative of a “dying breed” of men, as both find themselves ditched by their wives by the novel’s end.
10.
How does the close friendship of Mia, Clover, Addison, and Jane resemble your own close friendships from college and/or high school? What are the redeeming aspects of each character, and what makes them worth following throughout the novel, despite their faults? What part of their friendship is enviable? Is there any part of their friendship that you found unusual, or maybe even unenviable?
