This is Where We Live

Erik Davies and Phoebe Zimmermann narrate alternate chapters of this novel, which delivers very different perspectives of a marriage on shaky ground. Both narrators do a remarkable job conveying the couple's interior lives. Zimmermann portrays Claudia, a 30-something filmmaker, as earnest and sincere, thoughtfully working her way through the tsunami of bad luck and worse decisions that threaten to destroy her marriage and her life. Davies plays her husband, Jeremy, with the perfect mixture of self-pity and petulance. Jeremy has skated through life on his good looks and charm, believing all the women who have told him how special he is. The narrators hold our attention by how well they inhabit the emotions of these characters. D.G. (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

April 5, 2010
Married 30-something artists Claudia and Jeremy Munger are the unlucky anchors of Brown's shaky sophomore novel, an of-the-moment time capsule in the mold of her well-received All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
. Claudia is a filmmaker whose first feature is about to be released; Jeremy is a musician on the brink of mainstream success; together they are living in boho splendor in a newly purchased L.A. bungalow. But when Claudia's film bombs, Jeremy's band breaks up, their adjustable rate mortgage balloons, and Jeremy's famous painter ex-girlfriend, Aoki, comes back on the scene, the Mungers' sense of themselves is harshly tested. The gauntlets the Mungers face verge on Kafkaesque, yet the novel proceeds with painful earnestness. Particularly detracting are the one-note supporting characters: Jeremy and Claudia's parents, an annoying roommate, the corpulent potential producer of Claudia's next film. Aoki, meanwhile, plays a pivotal role but is burdened with a heavy load of temperamental artist clichés. There are lovely small moments—Claudia's awkward run-in with a former student, for instance—that give hope that the undeniably talented author will find her footing again after this flawed effort.