Ask Me Again, Clare Sestanovich
Clare Sestanovich’s debut novel follows the acclaimed short-story collection Objects of Desire. It explores a young woman’s fraught coming of age and an unusual friendship between sixteen-year-old Eva and Jamie, who meet by chance. She comes from Brooklyn and is the child of liberal middle-class parents; he has grown up in Manhattan in a family as dysfunctional as it is wealthy. Their backgrounds could not be more different. Nevertheless, they form an immediate bond, rooted not in romantic attraction, but in their mutual shyness and unease with modern society. This unease leads Jamie to drop out of education, explore radical politics and join a strange, cult-like church. Meanwhile, Eva dutifully goes to college, embarks on a career in journalism and tries to fit in with her contemporaries. As she and Jamie drift apart, she yearns for their old closeness. But can it be recovered? And can either find the equilibrium they crave?
Sestanovich perfectly captures Eva’s intense, confused emotions as she navigates through her twenties, from the nostalgia that ambushes her ‘with sudden, piercing specificity’ to the anxiety that resembles ‘mist, enveloping her head’. She also writes astutely about her reliance on mentors: a college friend ‘full of opinions’; an on-off boyfriend who knows ‘German and a bit of Greek and something about every genre of music’; a ‘captivating’ young Democrat politician with whom she goes for walks. While Jamie retreats into mysticism, Eva searches desperately for someone who can teach her how to live a ‘normal’ life.
For all its focus on anxiety and uncertainty, though, Ask Me Again is rarely depressing. At its best, Sestanovich’s austere, elegant prose is a delight. There are moments of wry humour, as when Eva describes the afterlife as an ‘interminable epilogue’. Secondary characters such as Eva’s patient father Nick, her gentle former colleague Judy and the enthusiastic Democrat politician Jess demonstrate that kindness and generosity can still flourish in today’s solipsistic society. And Eva herself gradually acquires empathy and self-acceptance, learning how to treasure small pleasures such as gardening, or a walk on a beach where ‘each grain of sand, each drop of water’ is illuminated by sunlight.
Ask Me Again cannot be said to be action-packed, and some readers may find its open-ended conclusion frustrating; however, anyone interested in the emotional and professional challenges faced by thoughtful young people today will find it quietly compelling.
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