There is so much to love about Joshilyn Jackson’s A Grown-up Kind of Pretty that I have trouble knowing where to begin. The title is what first caught my eye, I suppose – it’s so Southern, so concise, and so evocative of a common thread throughout the novel. the novel revolves around three generations of women, two of whom know only too well the price to be paid for growing up too soon, and desperately seeking to prevent that same fate from befalling the third. Funny, tragic and tender by turns, the novel made me both laugh and cry – occasionally at the same time. At the heart of the story is a mystery, and a very literal skeleton in the closet that sends all the characters digging through their pasts, in an effort to unsnarl a suddenly very tangled future.
Every fifteenth year is a “bad year” for the Slocumb women; it’s an unlucky number for them. Ginny (usually called Big) got pregnant at fifteen, and her daughter Liza followed in her footsteps. Now the bad year has come around again, and both women are doing everything in their power to keep granddaughter Mosey from continuing the cycle (as everyone in Immita, Mississippi expects). To further complicate matters, Liza has suffered a debilitating stroke, and now Ginny has unearthed a box containing tiny bones in the backyard.
The narrative rotates amongst the three as they deal with the fallout from this revelation, which could destroy everything they hold dear. Big wants the problem to go away, and is determined to protect her family, no matter the cost. Mosey, being a headstrong teenager, is just as determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. In contrast, Liza knows the answers the questions raised the macabre discovery; her difficulty lies in finding a way to communicate them, silenced as she is by her “brain event”.
Each narrator has a unique voice, each character strongly defined and yet clearly related. Big and Mosey tell their stories in the first person (which is a delight) – something of which Liza is simply incapable. Her stroke severely impaired the language center of her brain, almost completely robbing her of words. Liza’s thoughts come in images and memories as she struggles to come back to herself.
I love the Liza chapters precisely because Jackson manages to convey Liza’s thought processes and personality while at the same time demonstrating exactly how limited she still is, imprisoned in her damaged brain and body. She has to constantly fight against the waves of oblivion that threaten to overwhelm her as she struggles to dredge up the memories that will pull all the pieces together, and must work even harder to share those answers with others.
The language throughout the novel is simply incredible: expressive, insightful, quirky and usually downright hilarious. All Slocumbs apparently have a very dry wit (even Liza manages withering sarcasm inside her head), and nothing and no one is immune from their verbal jabs. With every page I turned, I found myself constantly grinning at various turns of phrase – Big in particular can’t resist snarking at or about everyone and everything around her, even if the topic at hand is a tragic one. Her account of the night of Liza’s stroke? I kept cracking up at her descriptions and observations, even as I held my breath, heart pounding, waiting for the penny to drop.
Mosey has inherited the family sense of humor, use of language and way of speaking, although she is very much her own person. The poor girl has kissed a boy exactly once, in the sixth grade, and yet she squirrels away pregnancy tests, using a steady stream of negatives as a talisman, hoping to ward off her family’s legacy. She carries the weight of the town’s expectations on her shoulders; everyone assumes that she will turn out exactly like her mother and grandmother, no matter what she does to defy their predictions. Fortunately, she has two amazing best friends to help her get to the bottom of the mystery buried in the backyard. I’m actually jealous of her in that respect – I want friends like Patti and Roger.
The conclusion leaves many issues unresolved, which is no small part of its charm; the lives of our girls are still messy, still complicated, loose threads left dangling. Yet it is satisfying for all its incompleteness, because it ends with hope. Liza has made several steps along the road to recovery, continuing to improve, and “will regain the two-sided smile that Mosey remembers”. Mosey is at peace, out from under the hovering shadow of her family’s legacy – she’s come to terms with it, and is able to develop an identity of her own. Big is slowly learning to look for joy in life, instead of just watching out for trouble and keeping her head down. It’s not perfect, and there are plenty of pitfalls ahead of them – the “bad year” isn’t over yet. But at the end of the day, they have each other, things are slowly getting better, and that’s enough.
~Paige
Alabama Booksmith Blog 