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I Smile Back

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It doesn't take long for readers to understand that Laney Brooks, an alienated and affluent suburban housewife, suffers from a disastrous self-image. Promiscuous, alcoholic and drug-addicted, Laney careens on a self-destructive course in Amy Koppelman's exceptional second novel, "I Smile Back." Koppelman does not shy away from depicting the latent despair and existential loneliness her protagonist embraces; in brutally frank and often graphic descriptive passages, the author suggests that Laney is an unspoken, if often disregarded, archetype for a significant number of disaffected American women. "I Smile Back" is an unusual "novel in acts," and the intermission, during which readers may catch their breath from the awful wreckage of Laney's life, provides illumination as to why Laney suffers so.

In what appears to be a cryptic anecdotal recounting of a significant childhood event, Laney despondently admits the internalization of her father's reaction to a relatively innocuous incident regarding the bullying of her brother. His advice -- to act as if the hurtful incident did not even occur, transforms itself in Laney's mind. In advising her to swallow anger, her father indirectly encourages Laney's tendencies towards self-abasement. After her father divorces her mother and leaves the family, Laney perceives herself as "something not worth fighting for." Perniciously, this sense of worthlessness intertwines itself with an anguished feeling of abandonment, and Laney, as a mother, feels doomed that she will repeat the same process with her own children.

Koppelman is relentless in her discussion of the emotional consequences of childhood trauma. Are we in effect programmed to repeat the mistakes of our childhood in our adult experiences? To what extent do children, and the adults they become, have genuine choices in remaking their pasts? Is our tendency towards self-destruction greater than our capacity to nurture? It is with abject horror that Laney discovers her young son's propensities towards personality disorganization. Will his "mechanism of choice," a muffling of anger and compensation with forgiveness, cause him to "forget that he ever cried himself to sleep" while his mother spent nearly a month hospitalized in a half-way house after a suicidal episode.

Koppelman is at her very best when she compels her readers to look at life through Laney's eyes. A devoted husband becomes an insufferable bore; her doting children become tasks to be worked through, jobs to be completed. As Laney depersonalizes others, she does the same to herself. What could be a vibrant, enticing personality emerges as a husk. However, the novel does have some minor problems. There are far too many staccato-like paragraphs, too many sudden changes of voice. Even the final paragraph contains commentary as if written by a stage director.

Yet these flaws are few compared to the enormous emotional power of "I Smile Back." Amy Koppelman's sophomore novel compares favorably to her first. Both are unflinching commentaries on the vacuity of modern American life, and each features women who are lost and may never find their way back. It is a rare writer who tackles the complex and agonizing topic of trans-generational transmission of trauma. Koppelman has the talent to make the bleak seem relevant; her dark worldview ironically may inspire resolve rather than resignation.

In her latest novel "I Smile Back", Amy Koppelman conveys through Laney a state of emotional strangulation that may be best described as a psychological version of "locked-in syndrome", the neurological condition in which the body is almost completely paralyzed, but by some cruel form of grace, the intellect is spared. Laney is imprisoned inside a body that is not inert but that cannot stop itself from a self-destructive cycle of drug taking, alcohol abuse and promiscuous sex. Unlike most people with these psychological symptoms, however, she is not a narcissist who uses these activities to avoid emotional connection and feeling. Laney has a crystalline insight, into herself and those in her midst, that never deserts her. So she is the helpless witness to her own downward spiral, and to the impact of that spiral on others, especially her young son and daughter. A prisoner as well of the memory of her own childhood, she knows full well that her children's evolving selves will grow up with different shapes, no longer straight but bent, no longer whole but with empty spaces that cannot be filled in later, as they feel the impact of that spiraling descent. This unusual empathic ability, conveyed through Ms. Koppelman's precise and economical prose, is so completely on target that it takes one's breath away---especially the breath of anyone who has ever been a mother. Ms Koppelman is a writer of enormous artistic and psychological gifts, who can take us through Laney to visit some very dark places in the soul---places that probably exist to some extent within most of us--- but who also makes sure she is there to accompany us on the return trip.

Carla M. Solomon

Warning: This book is exceptionally sexually explicit. The details fit the character, but the novel is not for the squeamish. "I Smile Back" is a spare, odd book, written in a modern-style with a modern, twisted story. The protagonist, Laney, has more problems than the average suburban mom: drugs, alcoholism, a propensity for self-destruction, numerous, numbing affairs. Still, the reader keeps hoping for Laney to see the light, to see the love her children have for her, the bright hope they represent. Kellerman's style, though sleek and witty, is also beautiful and apt: "If the castle is hope, memory is the moat that surrounds it." From page to page, the reader never knows if Laney will turn things around or go under for the final time. This is not a happy hockey mom story. It is vivid, and probably, far too true.

Laney Brooks is not a character most people are going to like, and even fewer will respect. When we meet Laney, she is spending her days drinking in her closet, cheating on her husband, and snorting coke before she goes to pick up her kids. The book follows Laney through her bottom and into rehab, and then back into her life again as she struggles to deal not only with her substance abuse, but with the reasons why, which she thinks goes back to when her father left the family. Frankly, Laney is an incredibly narcissistic woman, who sees every situation only how it affects her. Even when her son starts to show signs of compulsive behavior, all she can think about is how it will make her look. I didn't like Laney, and I didn't care about the choices she makes in the end, but I can respect the book as an interesting piece of writing.

of what it means to look at a person and truly not know what lies beneath the surface even when we are sure that we do. This seemingly perfect, has-everything-she-wants and living-the-dream character is battling demons so strong that the reader is inexplicably aware of the odds stacked against her recovery. It is apparent why some would feel threatened and uncomfortable with the dark tone. It is designed to make the reader think. I would not call Laney a likeable character but in reading her about her struggles, one cannot entirely hate her because it is all too obvious how horribly she suffers. This story gives offers a deeper dimension and a far more rounded view of the human condition at its worst. Adding on a bit much later, I will say that the story is so dark that it lacks balance and balance is what is needed to bring this novel toward a better sense of relatedness.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Koppelman about the new book shortly before it was released. It felt a little strange, considering the novel's content, to be between quiet and secluded shelves carrying Grabby Elephant, My First Trucks and The Fairies of Pixie Hollow, on the floor of the children's section of a Barnes and Noble. Here's an excerpt:

"For three years publishers sent her the same complaint about I Smile Back: 'This book is too dark and depressing for this publishing climate.' Her acclaimed debut, A Mouthful of Air, covered post-partum depression and infanticide, and was rejected enough times to make her wonder whether she should even write. It took a note from Joan Didion herself to convince Koppelman that she was, indeed, "a real writer." I Smile Back took relatively less time to get accepted; three years, to be precise.

"Used to rejection, (she failed to gain entrance twice before finally being accepted at Columbia University), Koppelman persevered. She even kept her favorite rejection letter, saying it might be the best compliment she has ever received: 'This book too closely mirrors the disappointments in life.' 'I thought that was what we were supposed to do,' she said.

"I Smile Back follows Laney Brooks, a suicidal mother of two hiding behind the façade of the upper-middle-class suburban soccer mom. Laney's underbelly is unnervingly exposed to us as she lives out the manic curve of a bipolar addict, bent on destroying the things she loves.

"At one point Laney drives through a busy intersection in an attempt to kill herself, and failing that goes to pick up her son from school. At another, she sees an audience full of 'chin-up, hands-folded, closed-lipped, self-satisfied phonies' attending her son's piano recital, something Koppelman had also experienced. [note: although with a different outlook, she says]

"There are several similarities between Amy and Laney that are hard to miss. They are the same age, have two children of the same age, and are married to Bruce and Brian respectively. The line between writing about what she knows and exploring what she fears is blurred. But, recollecting the infanticide in her first novel, she's upbeat: 'At least I don't kill my kids in this one.'"

I'm not used to writing book reviews, but in this case I liked the book enough to hunt her down to meet for a recorded interview. At the time I was working for a school journal that decided the interview had content that was a little too risky to publish, so I've put it on my own site. It is true that at times one gets a sense of dramatic irony--good things might come along, but the reader knows that at some point it's going to get nasty again. Moments of happiness are surrounded by discomfort and depravity.

Not that it is a depressing book to read, it's just not for the faint-hearted. There is ugliness in everything, not least in herself. The book opens with her drunk, meticulously pruning herself in the mirror. She satisfies herself with the pain of plucking rogue hairs, noticing "the panicked look in her eyes" in the mirror. Laney even sees the suburban landscape as horrible; "angry suburban chimneys jab at nearly perfect evening skies." I imagine that it is novels like these that gave the writers of Desperate Housewives their muse. Thankfully, novels don't have the same restrictions as T.V. shows.

I must have read this book in about six to eight hours, cover to cover. From opening it I didn't put it down. Sitting in a coffee shop, I laughed at a particularly awkward moment, then looked around nervously at the other patrons. Of course--I had to remind myself--they don't know what you're finding funny. It is with guilt that one laughs when reading I Smile Back, and turns, page by page, excited to know just what is coming next.

If you find dark humor funny, and almost aggressively uncomfortable situations inviting, this is the book for you.

In today's "Real Housewives of Wherever" infused media, it is easy to look at an upper middle class suburban wife and mother and think she has it all-- or at least that she has it so easy. But the portrait of one such woman, Laney Brooks, that author Amy Koppelman paints in her sophomore novel, "I Smile Back," challenges that stereotype, as she is instead a bit like the female version of Christian Slater in "My Own Worst Enemy." By day, Laney is dropping her kids off at school and scheduling manicures and trips to the grocery store, but by night she is pill-popping and downing glasses of vodka like they are water. To prejudge her as just another spoiled socialite who has too much time on her hands very quickly proves unfair, though, as at its core, "I Smile Back" seems to be a post-traumatic stress tale if there ever was one.

Though Laney has a husband who built a respectable empire up from days on the streets as a bookie, a big house with a pool, a new SUV, a new glittering diamond wedding ring, and two adorable-- and still remarkably innocent-- children, she has demons that still eat her up so badly inside she acts out time and again, basically just begging for her loved ones to turn their backs on her the way she perceives her father to have done when he walked out on her, her mother, and her brother when she was just a child. Laney's demons appear to be one-part genetic (her alcoholism is something shared with her absent father) and one-part oxymoronic desperate attempt to numb the pain from her father's alcoholism and subsequent absence. Laney is a walking dichotomy: she claims to love her father more than anything but her contradictory actions (such as the multiple affairs) prove she has much more anger within her than she is willing to admit.

But this time around the loved ones in Laney's life don't leave her; in fact they will do anything they can to save her, and what is just so tragic about her tale is that although she can see that, it's never quite enough. And when her own son starts to exhibit the obsessive behaviors that will only later manifest themselves in abuse or addiction, she simply chooses to ignore them, still stuck in the selfish mentality of the child who's emotional maturity was stunted the day her father walked out.

"I Smile Back" is not a traditional novel: it is told in three acts, and each one is clearly marked and read more like a manuscript for a play than a literary work (the middle section is even called "Intermission," perhaps to be used as a time to reflect). But Laney is not a traditional heroine (yes despite all she puts the readers through, we still find ourselves genuinely rooting for her to find whatever she needs to feel good-- to feel whole-- even though we know that hope is futile), so this style suits her. In many ways, "I Smile Back" reads like the train-of-thought inner workings of Laney's mind: raw, real, and yes, self-deprecating. In other ways, the book steps outside of Laney and the narration begins to sound like someone who is watching Laney and reporting back on what she is doing-- but that does not read like a editorial flaw but rather yet another intentional look at her damaged psyche: sometimes to protect ourselves, we detach from our emotions, and it's like we step outside ourselves and just become spectators to avoid the sheer power of feeling.

Koppelman does the astonishing--she has followed up her first novel, A Mouthful of Air, with one that is even more fierce, haunting and original. Koppelman delves into the underbelly of modern life to craft a portrait of a woman that is as disturbing as it is unforgettable. The writing is gorgeous--like nothing you have ever read before--too.

The word "gripping" gets bandied about quite a bit in book reviews, but this book earns it. First it grips your heart, then your stomach, then your throat. The main character, Laney, is at once abused and abuser, protagonist and antagonist, victim and villain. And more than anything... real. Koppelman's style is hypnotic... the reader spends most of the book inside Laney's head... and we inhale every hope, defeat, doubt, fear, truth and lie. A book that stays with you.

I loved this book. After having read both of Amy Koppelman's books, it is hard to pick a favorite! She has a masterful way of grabbing your interest from the first few words until you feel as though YOU are a small character in her stories actually watching the events take place.

Amy pens a slice of the reality of life that exits, to some degree, in every home...and in every walk of life. She forces us to comprehend her characters and therein to take a good look at ourselves in the process.

Laney proves that we become more of what we already are... not less; and that life just is what it is. Amy forces the reader to comprehend Laney's viewpoint by using the clever "thought processing sentence structure", which makes us concentrate even harder on Laney's message. And even if we feel Laney is a might self-indulgent...she opens her up so that we can fully understand how she has gotten to this place.

We cannot go through our own lives without meeting a Laney or a Bruce. That is exactly what I love about Amy Koppelman's writing. She is brutally honest and very gifted as a writer.

Bravo.