Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan [Hardcover]

Paula Marantz Cohen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2004

Paula Marantz Cohen's triumphant first novel, Jane Austen in Boca, was an inspired blend of classic English literature and modern American manners. Her new novel heads north to the seemingly quiet suburban town of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, for a comedy that even Shakespeare couldn't have imagined.

Carla Goodman is worried. Her husband, a gastroenterologist in private practice, is coming home frazzled because medicine isn't what it used to be. Her son's teachers want to put him on Ritalin to stop him from wreaking havoc on the fifth grade. And her cranky twelve-year-old daughter has a bas mitzvah coming up.

But it's Carla's sweet, widowed mother, Jessie Kaplan, who really has her baffled. Jessie has suddenly "remembered" that she was Shakespeare's girlfriend---the Dark Lady of the sonnets---in a previous life. Can even the famed Dr. Leonard Samuels, psychiatrist and author of the self-help book How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Mother-in-Law, help with problems like these?

Witty, engaging, and wickedly observant, Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan is an unpredictable tale of love, loss, and family rites of passage.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A looming bat mitzvah and a mother who believes she's the reincarnation of Shakespeare's Dark Lady cause no end of trouble for the suburban heroine of this corny but hilarious second novel by Cohen (Jane Austen in Boca). Carla Goodman of Cherry Hill, N.J., is saddled with a 12-year-old daughter, Stephanie, who seems to be in "a perpetual state of PMS," a 10-year-old son, Jeffrey, who is "on his way to becoming a fifth-grade delinquent," and a gastroenterologist husband who is having trouble maintaining a private practice ("It's one thing to look up butts and get rich.... It's another to do it for nickel and dimes"). At the same time, Carla's widowed mother, Jessie, starts making references to mead and doublets, apparently remembering her former life as the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's sonnets. Cohen, who is developing a sparkling reputation for bringing the classics into contemporary fiction, paints in broad strokes but hits the mark with this domestic comedy. When Carla turns to renowned psychiatrist Dr. Leonard Samuels, famous for his bestselling How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Mother-in-Law, for advice, the humor escalates. Anyone-Jewish or not-who has ever attended a bat or bar mitzvah will find Cohen's take on the preparations and planning for this rite of passage spot on. By the end of this thoroughly entertaining romp, the author convincingly resolves all of Carla's family dilemmas with large doses of humor and heart.
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Review

“Though Cohen’s knack for gentle satire earns some terrific laughs, this buoyant novel’s power stems from the author’s deep sympathy for her conventional characters. She mocks, yes, but from a place of tremendous understanding.”
---Newsday

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312324987
• ISBN-13: 978-0312324988
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,540,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful tale, beautifully crafted, April 9, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan (Hardcover)

This is an absolutely delightful book. The plot is engaging, and the writing is elegant. Ms Cohen truly has a way with words, and the book is loaded with expertly crafted turns of phrase. The writing is Austen-esque, with its superb portrayals of the minutiae of daily life and its detailed look at the comedy of manners that is the life of its characters. The humor is engaging, drawing snorts of laughter and of recognition as situations arise that are, at least by analogy, part of my own life.

This books deals impeccably and elegantly with several themes of the human comedy. These include: the rite of passage into adulthood that is the bar (or bat) mitzvah (fabulous portrayal of a twelve-year-old girl here), several rites of passage for adults, including maturing into true adulthood, mid-life crises, and coping with aging parents, and the rite of passage that is aging itself (we should all be as lucky as Jessie!).

This is a wonderful book, and a worthy second novel (not a sequel) to the glorious Jane Austen in Boca, Ms Cohen's first novel.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A second wonderful book from Ms. Cohen, April 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan (Hardcover)

I enjoyed Ms. Cohen's first book, Jane Austen in Boca, so much, that when I saw that she had published a second novel, I did a little dance in front of my computer. She writes the type of book in which kind, funny, intelligent people do their best to live honorable lives despite all the obstacles that the world (and often their families and friends) throw into their paths. The characters are vivid, their problems are universal. It's lovely, smart and beautifully written book.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but not deep, May 25, 2005

By 

D. Plotkin (St. Louis) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan (Hardcover)

This novel was a fun little romp, especially for those who have at least a basic understanding of Shakespeare's plays. I'm not sure the end of the Jessie Kaplan plot was well explained or reasoned out, it felt too sudden (I can't give more detail for risk of ruining the plot).
My main criticism is that Cohen, while desciribing the Bar/Bat Mitzvah culture of East Coast Jews (Midwest and south is a bit more reserved), missed an opportunity to make a sharper critique of the situation in which the ceremony is downplayed and the party is the main event. Certainly Cohen issued a critique of this culutre, but it is weak at best and with a bit more humor and even exaggeration she could have made a point more forcefully. The main charachter, Carla, seems downright uninterested in the ceremony, except for the speech, for most of the book.
Good poolside reading. YOu won't gain any deep insights into the human condition. I hope that Cohen wasn't trying for that, or she missed badly.