Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

The Moment: You're ready to put on your traveling pants

by Mark Cofta

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Jun 10, 2009

Commencement
by J. Courtney Sullivan

Try to forget J. Courtney Sullivan's 2007 book, a pink-covered tome called Dating Up: Dump the Schlump and Find a Quality Man, before picking up the New York Times staffer's first novel. But do pick it up.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Commencement draws on Sullivan's Smith College education, introducing four class of 2002 members of the Massachusetts all-women's school who become best buds.

Sullivan writes fiction you might expect from a journalist: Her clean, precise prose stays carefully neutral and balanced, even as she shifts points of view from chapter to chapter. Her subjects feel too clinically crafted at first: Sally, "impeccable and impulsive," whose wedding dominates the book's first half; "brave and opinionated" April, whose radical feminist work drives the second; "bright and beautiful" Bree, who embarks on a long-term lesbian relationship while not sure she's gay; and Celia, lapsed Catholic, book editor, would-be novelist (and, one wonders, Sullivan's doppelganger?).

"All they knew of each other, really, were the sharp edges," Sullivan notes early on about the quartet, joined by random dorm assignment. "The middle parts and blurry lines were yet to be filled in." Then Commencement takes off, skillfully blending their stories. Before we're too comfortable with one woman's point of view, we're suddenly inside another's head, the juxtapositions revealing their complexity; no two people, let alone four, perceive events identically. Does Sally's baby end her freedom? Must Bree choose between family and Lara? Does Celia date solely to find a mate, or is it an end in itself? What will April risk to maintain her ideals? "Smith," we eventually agree, "is thicker than water."

Their struggles, reactions and decisions feel real. How they pull through — and pull together — proves inspiring.

Knopf, 336 pp., $24.95, June 16

There's a Book for That
My Goat Ate Its Own Legs by Alex Burrett
And Then There's This by Bill Wasik
Rave Culture by Tammy L. Anderson
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Big Rewind by Nathan Rabin
How The Beatles Destroyed Rock 'n' Roll by Elijah Wald
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
I'm Down by Mishna Wolff
This Is Your Country on Drugs by Ryan Grim
A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
How to Sell by Clancy Martin
Life Inc. by Douglas Rushkoff
The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton
The Blindfold Test by Barry Schechter