“WRITING Gone WRONG
Lydia Pasternak is in therapy. She’s fifteen and her football hero, popular, older brother has gone missing. He just suddenly, mysteriously vanished. Lydia has twenty-eight therapy sessions and nothing happens. Nothing! Twenty-eight sessions. Why did the author, Miriah Gershow, bother to include “therapy” in her novel, “The Local News” (2009) at all? Because Gershow thought a 15 year old girl would probably need therapy after such an event? Something must have happened, for better or worse in twenty-eight sessions. At least some insight into why nothing happened, yes?
Lydia’s parents both go missing, too—psychologically and emotionally. Lydia is left to fend for herself (Except she is in therapy.) And nothing happens. She does not become violet. She does not become sexually promiscuous. She does not abuse drugs or alcohol, drop out of school or become suicidal. She does become infatuated with the private detective hired to find her brother … and nothing happens. She does develop an eye infection … and nothing happens. She does, at one point, attach herself to the foreign-exchange student … and nothing happens. That is pretty much the whole of the story—nothing happens. We, as reader learn nothing. Oh, we do learn what happened to the brother … but not really.
There is never any “why” here. Not even a clue as to why the author put events into the story. A whim? Filler? Why tell the story at all? You can, however, open the book to any page, read it, and think—good writing. Gershow can put words on paper that paint a good picture, mainly of a nerdy teen-age girl. But there is no story here. No character development, no issue explored, no question asked and answered.
Seeking answers, I googled Miriam Gershow. It so happens she is a creative writing professor at the University of Oregon, and this is her first novel. Her picture suggests she was a nerdy high schooler; but this is not auto-biographical, she discloses in an interview. She made the story up. (Aside to the professor: Write what you know, or at least do some research.) Again, Gershow does do good work when it comes showing what it is like to be an intellectual, nerdy teen-aged girl. But that’s it. And she is teaching creative writing at a major university! Not English composition, creative writing!
One of the hits on Google was a student evaluation questionnaire. A not uncommon comment was “Worst teacher ever,” or something similar. A common comment was that if you showed up for class and handed in assignments, you got a C grade. This at university, which is supposed to be where the unaverage come to learn. What the f__k is going on?
I looked at the first six pages of Google on Gershow, sixty sites, and most were book reviews … and the reviews were very favorable, flattering in fact. Rave reviews. Something is wrong here. This is not good writing—writing that goes nowhere. I cannot recommend this book, especially to those wanting to learn about writing, which is the least a good book should do.
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Mark J wrote this review Tuesday, November 17 2009.
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