Anything for Jane: A Novel [Hardcover]

Cheryl Mendelson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 2007

This provocative, funny, perceptive novel tells the story of the trials of over-conscientious parenthood, as the devoted Braithwaites watch their bright, gifted eighteen-year-old take her disturbing initial steps toward independence, integrity–and failure.

The action is set in Morningside Heights, the Manhattan neighborhood surrounding Columbia University where the Braithwaites live in a community in which adults’ aspirations are firmly focused on the achievements of their children. Talented, troubled, and self-centered, Jane Braithwaite makes her well-meaning upper-middle-class family miserable, enmeshing them in the complicated lives of a homeless family, a poor teenager with no family, and a would-be family foundering on childlessness. When catastrophe finally threatens, all their dilemmas are resolved by the same stunning and unexpected means.

All the while, the Braithwaites involve old and new friends in their struggles–a lovesick clergyman, a lonely doctor and his baby-obsessed wife, a libertarian billionaire, a money-loving philosopher, and a hard-bitten but sexy poverty activist. Their social and political clashes provide entertainment both comic and serious.

Anything for Jane is a fast-paced, beautifully crafted, moving tale of parent-child discord, class conflict, and young love. Erudite and playful, it offers readers a feast of rich satisfactions.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The fates of three families converge in a contrived manner in the gentrified Upper West Side Manhattan neighborhood encountered in Mendelson's previous novel, Morningside Heights. Charles and Anne Braithwaite are dream parents, but their eldest daughter, Jane, an accomplished senior at a private school, is miserable and acts out by choosing inappropriate boyfriends. Gabriela Leon, the Dominican woman who cleans the Braithwaites' apartment, falls ill and gets evicted from the apartment she shares with her high school senior nephew Andrés. Gabriela and Andrés move into the Braithwaites' spare room—supposedly on a temporary basis—and the love that blossoms between Jane and Andrés has a predictable outcome that's burdened when Andrés and Gabriela's boyfriend, Juan, are arrested on drug charges. (Juan was trying to scrape together the funds to secure Gabriela an apartment.) The third thread is mild-mannered Dr. Michael Garrard, whose marriage is being destroyed by an inability to have children. His passion is wrapped up in the Ecumenical Council of Religious Charities, always on the lookout for worthy causes—such as Andrés's case. The novel's anti–Rockefeller drug law agenda clouds the narrative, particularly in the novel's second half, when Mendelson's stage managing overshadows the lively characters she's created. (July)
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From Booklist

In the third novel in Mendelson's thoroughly absorbing Morning Side Heights series (following Love, Work, and Children, 2005), the Braithwaites, upper-middle-class residents of Manhattan, are facing their toughest parenting challenge. Their musically talented daughter Jane is miserable, testing her parents' patience with her over-the-top angst-ridden behavior. Unable to relate to her overachieving classmates and coming off a tumultuous relationship with a classic bad boy, Jane becomes smitten with her housekeeper's teenage nephew, Andrés. Across the gaping class divide, the two bring out the best in each other, with Jane giving the hardworking, near-homeless Andrés a safe haven, while he provides the troubled girl with emotional stability. Mendelson's novel veers off on a tangent in the last third, when the author becomes sidetracked by her stand against New York's draconian drug laws. Nevertheless, she is able to do what many authors of domestic fiction are not, which is to address the pressing issues of family life with uncommon intelligence. She turns the thorny topics of parenting, sibling relationships, and family income into utterly compelling reading. Wilkinson, Joanne
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Random House (July 31, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375508384
• ISBN-13: 978-0375508387
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,834,017 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cheryl Mendelson is a Harvard Law School graduate, a sometime philosophy professor, a novelist (Morningside Heights and Love, Work, Children), and a homemaker by choice. Born into a rural family in Greene County, Pennsylvania, she now lives in New York City with her husband and son.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A satisfying finale to the trilogy, August 28, 2007

By 

a reader (Clemson, SC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Anything for Jane: A Novel (Hardcover)

ANYTHING FOR JANE is the final volume of Mendelson's MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS trilogy, and while not as out-and-out wonderful as the first, it's considerably better than the middle volume (LOVE, WORK, CHILDREN) and a delight in its own right. Fans of Cheryl Mendelson will especially love the first half of the book, and newcomers will be welcomed into the fold with fabulous Austenian touches such as this line, introducing the Braithwaite family's cleaning lady and her children:

"The catastrophes that constantly threatened them were ordinary and typical, yet just as hard to bear as though they were full of fascinating novelty."

The story centers on the coming-of-age of Jane, the eldest of the Braithwaite's four children, a gifted singer but indifferent and at times outright rebellious student. Jane has every advantage in terms of intelligent, sympathetic, and well-connected family, so of course is miserable and determined to steer her own course. Parallel to her story are the woes of the Dominican cleaning lady's family and those of several of the Braithwaites' friends.

I'm not going to give away much about this novel, because it takes some surprising and outright unbelievable turns, but the quality of the writing and the absolutely unputdownable narrative are worth the implausible resolution. In MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS, the neighborhood itself was a character, and this is really Mendelson's strength: shrewd analysis of the way the people in her world think and behave. She will remind you of Jane Austen, but with a darker outlook. Although things usually turn out well in Mendelson's world, happiness comes at a steep price.

The one tremendous improvement ANYTHING FOR JANE makes over the earlier novels is that it has no villains (well there are two minor ones, but one repents and the other is excusable). In the two earlier volumes there were definite good guys and bad guys, and the bad guys were entirely too bad to be interesting. Mendelson takes on our legal system as the evil force in this novel, with much better results, especially as we see each person in the process playing an unwilling or unwitting role in perverting justice. It's something we can all recognize, and rings far more true than the wicked individuals of her previous books.

Cheryl Mendelson is a superbly gifted writer, and I hope that with this trilogy complete, she'll dive into another novel at once. If you haven't read her yet, please give MORNINGSIDE HEIGHTS first look. You will be richly rewarded.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A nice conclusion for the author's Morningside Heights trilogy, August 31, 2007

By 

David Walden (Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anything for Jane: A Novel (Hardcover)

To me this book seems a little more contrived than the previous two books in her trilogy, and the author continues to do a lot of "talk" rather than "show". But her narrator's "talk" continues to be clever, often amusing, and easy to read. Altogether I enjoyed the book, and am sorry the series is finished. All these Morningside Heights characters were a kick. I hope the author continues to write novels.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than Morningside Heights, September 23, 2007

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A. You (NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Anything for Jane: A Novel (Hardcover)

As someone who's half Latin American, I find it pathetic that most American books, when they deal with Latinos at all, resort to stereotype. So I was sorely disappointed to see that Mendelson's latest novel contained the Dominican housecleaner, her boyfriend who in desperation deals drugs, and her nephew--the smart boy deeply affected by the poverty in which he lives. Sigh. Roll of eyes.

Still, I can judge judge a novel objectively, even if it contains such grating and clichéd ingredients. And I have to say that Anything for Jane is a better novel than Morningside Heights. Not that the latter was a bad book; on the contrary. I enjoyed reading it, but felt it was a little too cerebral--more brain than heart. Anything for Jane, while it doesn't shy away from ideas or political positions, is more powerful because we empathize with the characters, instead of simply reading about them with a certain detachment. Of course it helps that, in this case, the stakes are much higher than they were in Mendelson's previous book.