The Smart One

March 4, 2013
Near the end of Close’s follow-up to her bestselling Girls in White Dresses, Claire thinks, “It was almost like she was right back where she’d started, but it didn’t feel that way.” For the reader, though, that’s exactly how it feels. After ending her engagement, Claire sinks into depression, maxing out her credit cards and finally leaving New York for Philadelphia to move back in with her parents and sister, Martha, who’s still working retail after a failed nursing career. Despite the finality of the breakup, Claire’s mother continues to meet with caterers and florists to plan her daughter’s wedding. How this will all end is clear when we first meet Claire and Martha; Close telegraphs that the way forward is to reclaim lost ground. What’s surprising is that the sisters have so little fun along the way. Martha and Claire don’t seem to have a genuinely kind impulse between them, and when they do finally move on, boredom is a big motivator. There are great stories to be told about families in “boomerang,” but this isn’t one of them. Agent: Sam Hiyate, the Rights Factory.

March 1, 2013
Close, whose first novel (Girls in White Dresses, 2011) romped with recent college grads newly on their own, focuses here on two sisters on the cusp of 30, both torn between independent womanhood and lingering dependence on parents. Claire Coffey has no investment in her nondescript (as in never described) job at an unnamed nonprofit, no social life now that her engagement has been broken by mutual consent, and a negative cash flow now that her ex-fiance has moved out of their shared Manhattan apartment. The only way she sees out of her debt is to move back in with her parents in Philadelphia: supermaternal Weezy and slightly removed Will (Close's men never rise above sketches). Claire's sister Martha, older by less than a year, is already there. She has lived at home and seen an increasingly frustrated therapist ever since having a breakdown during her first job as a certified nurse years ago. Soon, Claire has a dull temp job and a guy to hook up with: her hottie crush in high school, who conveniently just got dumped by his fiancee and is living with his parents too. An insecure underachiever, Claire is the typical cute, witty heroine readers know will land on her feet. But less attractive, i.e. slightly overweight, Martha, who has always been needy and socially off-kilter, steals the novel. After years managing a J.Crew, she has taken a first step back toward nursing with a job as an elderly man's caregiver, but whether she'll take a second step remains questionable. The friction between the sisters is palpable and real. Less believable is the subplot concerning younger brother Max, who moves home with his gorgeous, sensitive but very pregnant college girlfriend, Cleo; Close evades explaining why they decide to have the baby. Nothing unexpected happens, but the novel sings in the small moments when its women express uncomfortable truths, undercurrents of sibling resentment and parental disappointment, which usually remain unspoken. An unassuming but far from vacuous domestic comedy, perfect for the beach or a long plane trip.

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November 1, 2012

Close's best-selling debut, Girls in White Dresses--about three young women dealing with job stress and uncertain love while everyone else is getting married--sounded suspiciously like a made-for-TV movie but was something else entirely. Once again, Close sets out to deal smartly with domestic crisis. Weezy and Will Coffey always tried to be the best of parents, so why is thin-skinned Martha back home in her childhood bedroom after a career crisis, Claire locked in her apartment after ditching her fiance, and college senior Max in real girl trouble? From an author tracking upward.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2013
After watching her engagement fall apart, her job performance tank, and her credit-card balance rise into the stratosphere, Claire Coffey decides it's time to move back home. An old romantic flame even resurfaces, though Claire believes that being home for any meaningful length of time forces a regression to teenage behavior. While Claire, older sister Martha, younger brother Max, and the rest of the Coffey family try to navigate the logistics of having adult children return to the previously empty nest, they realize that no right answers can be found in any parenting manual. The Smart One focuses on the intersections of self-discovery, independence, and reliance in the modern family, all enlivened by Close's signature wit and warmth. Close does an admirable job of equally voicing the Coffey children, straining to reevaluate their priorities under a shared roof, and the Coffey parents, aching to provide guidance without wanting to seem heavy-handed. A touchingly tender, emotionally honest novel about shifting priorities and the nontraditional career paths so many find themselves on, this will appeal to fans of Jennifer Weiner and Laura Dave.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)