Mary Jane: A Novel

Jessica Anya Blau has produced a playful romp of a novel in Mary Jane. It is the story of a fourteen-year-old girl living in Baltimore during the 1970s; one who grows up in an archly conservative family. Mary Jane happens to get a summer job as a nanny for a local psychiatrist who is working to assist a famous rock star achieve sobriety. Oh, and the rock star (a cross between Jim Morrison and Billy Idol) just happens to have a movie star for a wife.

Suffice it to say that everything rapidly changes for our protagonist, who finally begins to feel things: “To feel something was to feel alive.” She learns that it’s permissible to have fun in life. As a group of wise musicians once sang, “Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy.” While this story is written for adults, it would not be surprising if it becomes a popular YA novel. Kudos to Blau. Let’s hope she has more arrows like this in her quiver. Nick Hornby loved Mary Jane, and it’s likely that you will, too.