Don't I Know You?

June 15, 2016
A writer's life is studded with celebrity appearances in this whimsical collection of linked stories.When we meet Rose at 17 in 1963, she's a student at a summer arts program in the Canadian countryside where an American author who has recently published a "novel about an aging basketball player" is the visiting writing instructor. But the young John Updike is less moved by Rose's writing talent than her long, tanned legs, Bermuda shorts, and matching halter tops, and by the end of the summer Rose will have learned more about the faithlessness of men than the writing of fiction. In subsequent stories, she'll go on a date with Bill Murray, be stalked by Charlotte Rampling, and share a stolen kiss with Bob Dylan after he mysteriously crashes her family's summer vacation. Fourteen stories and 50 years later, she's had a facial from Gwyneth Paltrow and liver surgery by a drunk Keith Richards, winding things up by taking a canoe trip with Leonard Cohen, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Taylor Swift. Jackson, a Canadian magazine journalist making her fiction debut, finds many ingenious ways to play this game, but the quality of the stories is inconsistent, and there's not much to keep you going except to see which famous name is next. The most emotionally developed piece is also one of the cleverest, "Free Love," in which Rose and her boyfriend, Nick, run into Joni Mitchell in the Cretan village of Matala. All the details of the setting come from Mitchell's song "Carey": the silver, the wine, the wind in from Africa, Carey himself. As Nick throws himself unabashedly into an affair with the girl in the next cave, Rose becomes increasingly miserable. As Joni puts it in a heart-to-heart at the Mermaid Cafe, "This free-love thing. It's bullshit." A one-trick pony, with a pretty good trick.

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September 1, 2016
In 1963, Rose is just 17 and headed for a summer writing camp taught by John Updike. Their time together is brief but formative for Rose, and it is the first of what turns out to be many celebrity encounters throughout her life. From Meryl Streep at a spa weekend to Bob Dylan at her summer cottage, Rose stumbles across a colorful cast of notable personalities in unique encounters over a wild span of 50 years. Jackson relates these meetings in a novel-in-stories, a collection of colorful vivisections that each capture a moment. Put together, though, they tell the story of Rose's life, from her coming of age in the era of free love and hippie music over a tortuous path of relationships, children, and careers. Though each vignette is built on biographical details pertaining to the showcased stars, Jackson has created entertaining fictional encounters that range from hilariously normal to confoundingly surreal. With its backdrop of cultural touchstones that define the passing generations, this playful journey will especially appeal to fiction lovers who are also pop culture fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)