A woman takes a stroll through New York City on Thanksgiving Day, gets high, ponders her work as a Shakespearean actress, the abusive director of the theater company that made and sustained her career, and her family.
I don’t remember how I came across this book by Mischa Berlinski or what inspired me to read it, but doing so was definitely a mistake.
Mona is married with one son, whom I completely forgot about because he’s such a nonentity in this book, one dog (the real protagonist in this book), and her orphaned niece who sometimes stays with them when she’s not at college.
The book takes place on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Mona is in the kitchen cooking and worrying about a confrontation with her niece, because the last time they spoke, they got in a passive-aggressive not-fight about Milton Katz, the founder and long-time director of a successful Manhattan theater company. He also happens to be the man who made Mona’s career, so she’s not exactly unbiased.
A large part of the book seems to want to dismiss Milton’s transgressions because he’s an alleged genius. Funny how genius women are never given the same leeway. We’re expected to be brilliant and likeable and sexy, but not too sexy, etc.
Mona never denies that Milton is a sexual predator. Like I said, he’s a genius, and he made her career, and that’s her focus.
It’s also revealed, later in the book, that Mona had consensual sex with Milton, despite knowing he was married. It happened once, and then he got distracted by a younger, more beautiful woman who joined the company as an ingenue, because of course there’s always a younger, more beautiful woman.
Not only was Milton no longer interested in having sex with Mona, he also changed his mind about giving her the big part he had promised her. Instead he gave it to his young ingenue, whom Mona views as a talentless hack until Milton has an affair with her and somehow that brings out her brilliance? The fact that the author thinks that’s a thing is exactly why men shouldn’t write books about women being exploited and harassed.
It also causes the ingenue to quit the company when her one-year contract is up and after Milton’s wife confronted her at the theater in front of everyone.
It’s also telling that the only two women who slept with Milton that we get to hear from wanted to have sex with him. Of course, a male writer is going to write away a man’s abuse as being OK because “they wanted it.”
Mona had stayed in touch with this castmate after she left the company, but it’s one of those occasional-exchanges-on-Facebook kind of friendships. So, while she’s wandering around the city, she finds herself walking up to this castmate’s place, which just happens to be the same apartment she lived in 20 years ago.
She manages to get included in the dinner party and ends up having Thanksgiving with them, getting high and drunk, and apparently reciting Shakespeare without having any memory the next morning of having done so.
With the guests gone, Mona and her castmate (whose name escapes me) finally have an honest conversation about Milton, and I found that the most interesting part of the book. Up until that point, we had only gotten Mona’s perspective on the whole thing, and of course her version paints herself in the best light. The ingenue was a decade younger than Mona, so she looked up to Mona and asked her for advice when Milton started harassing her.
To hear Mona tell it, she was neutral and told the ingenue to do whatever she wants.
But the ingenue said Mona pushed her to go for it, and Mona doesn’t deny that, which makes Mona an unreliable narrator. Not only are those always more interesting than omniscient narrators, but they’re true to life. We all narrate the story to paint ourselves in the best light.
I also appreciate the moment when Mona tells the ingenue she could have said “No” to Milton, and the ingenue points out that, no, she did not know that, because she was in her early twenties still trying to figure out how to make her way in the world. So, when her boss started to show interest in her, of course she didn’t think she had the ability to say no. At least the author recognized that much, but at this point, he’s just doing the bare minimum.
By claiming she told the ingenue to do whatever she wants, Mona is trying to absolve herself of her complicity in the abuse, because that’s the real problem, isn’t it? It’s not just that men in power will always take advantage of vulnerable women, it’s all the people around them who know exactly what’s happening and, at best, do nothing to stop it, and at worst, actively aid and abet the abuser.
So, of course Mona is determined to let Milton off the hook. After leaving her castmate’s apartment, she makes her way to Milton’s home and ends up bringing him and his housekeeper back to her place for some reason.
So the sexual predator still gets welcomed into a nice home to celebrate the holidays with people who adore him, because of course what’s really important is making sure the abuser gets a happy ending.