Anything but gentle
Bestselling author delivers a bold, brainy and beautifully constructed literary feat

We’re taking a look today at a book by one Maria Semple entitled “Go Gentle.” Published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, they seem to be holding their collective breath in anticipation that the world will be of their opinion that Semple has come up with a literary sensation.

If I’m sounding snarky, it’s because Semple has indeed written a literary triumph by which all her previous and forthcoming novels will be measured. (Even Oprah agrees, naming the book as her April Book Club pick.) But “Go Gentle” is certainly an ironic title for a narrative that is anything but simple and depreciates the enormous challenge this book took to write.

“Go Gentle” is a brilliant undertaking and gripping to read. Adora Hazzard is the name of Semple’s protagonist, a single mother of a “fiery teenage girl” who moves to New York City to find a new job and life from previously dissatisfying work as a TV writer. And to throw gasoline on that fire, she is a self-proclaimed Stoic with a degree in philosophy.

It’s important to the appreciation of “Go Gentle” to understand as much as we can about Adora and her obstreperous daughter, Viv, which is offered up immediately and almost confidentially in this 365-page hardback. Adora has come to New York for a prearranged fellowship from the Lockwood Library on Fifth Avenue, one of New York’s swankier museums and home to a collection of rare books and preeminent art. She’s to research and write in the library and, four days a week, provide “moral training” for Lionel and Layla Lockwood’s twin tween sons.  

The author embroiders the fabric of “Go Gentle” with a myriad of references to great philosophers and philosophies. Semple imbues this diminutive and easily overlooked protagonist as a heroine from the residue of New York’s untouchable high society.

As this story moves impressively along, be reminded to jot down names of characters if you’re not a marathon reader. My guess is that Semple celebrated a number of birthdays before finishing “Go Gentle,” and her fidelity pays handsomely if you keep up with the changing perspectives and rotation of characters.

We first – and appropriately – spend a sizable sheaf of pages getting to know the superciliousness of the Lockwood’s posturing and their spoiled children. Adora becomes fond of the spunk she herself takes pride in. And we move through people who move through the Lockwoods’ lives and past Adora. 

Semple must have once crocheted or tatted lace for the patience she shows to the overindulgent and posturing Lockwood family, and indeed for the entirety of this exquisite book. 

And once we’re imbued with Adora’s forbearing, and we’re familiar with the staging and acoustics of her scant private life in her upper westside apartment, we’re sufficiently benumbed to begin the journey to the other side of the story: Adora goes to the opera with an extra ticket.

The extra ticket comes from her neighbor Emily Ann, who couldn’t make the performance. And when Adora arrives at the crowded lobby “with the central fountain gaily splashing, pocked marble sheath ghostly aglow and the retro-chic architecture dripping with Sputnik chandeliers that give off light so cozy it never fails to surprise,” we get our first glimpse of Adora the woman.

At the opera, she approaches the last man in the standby line and inquires if he needs a ticket.

“He turned. ‘This is unbelievable.’ He looked me up and down in guileless astonishment. Under his camel hair coat he wore a suit and open-collared shirt.”

“‘A Justin Peck premiere to boot.’ I presented him my extra: ‘my gift to you.’”  

The next day, with floor mates casually visiting Adora’s apartment, the doorman comes to her door with a briefcase that had been found on his desk without explanation. The suspicious package had no note, but an X-ray indicated a metallic foreign body, so they conducted a controlled explosion.

The case was scorched and disfigured, but a shiny, white envelop fell out mostly intact: “Inside was a thick, creamy white card, ‘DAVID IGNATIUS BEALE’ was engraved at the top. Underneath, in cursive, ‘I’m on the bench across Fifth.’”

It was the man she met the previous night at the opera.

Thus, on page 62, Semple shifts perspective from a lovely upper class sitting room overlooking bucolic Central Park to a criminal enterprise redolent with upper class style and heretofore assured expectations.

You shan’t hear more about “Go Gentle” from me. I insist, though, in recommending this exquisitely written and mysteriously plotted triumph of a novel, you will likely swoon over Semple’s exquisite sentences and stare off in the distance after reading near perfect phrasing. Cowboy up for this one; don’t let it escape. And get your 15% “Murder Ink” discount at Maria’s Bookshop while keeping your hometown and a great bookstore healthy.