Which Brings Me to You: A Novel in Confessions (Hardcover)

by Steve Almond (Author), Julianna Baggott (Author)
Key Phrases: Michael Hanrahan, New York, Asbury Park (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
This witty but self-conscious epistolary novel starts with strangers groping each other in a coat closet and ends with the beginning of a relationship. Baggott (Girl Talk) and Almond (Candyfreak) join forces for "an extended power-flirt," conducted through the snail-mail correspondence between Jane and John, two 30-somethings who meet at a wedding and almost consummate their lust before John puts the brakes on, wondering if it might be the real thing. Jane reluctantly agrees to take it slow, so John returns to New York and Jane goes to Philadelphia, where they pen their respective confessions revealing their erotic and emotional experiences—they've both enjoyed a "past littered with regret." They are, in Jane's words, "two low grade Romantics. Tough but susceptible." By the time Jane and John meet again face-to-face in Hopewell, N.J., we know their backstories as well as their literary quirks. Sharp humor and insights into the modern psyche pervade the book, but not enough to make it add up to anything more than a pretense for hot scenes and spicy talk, a lot of sex and a little "low grade" romance. (May 5)
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From The Washington Post
This book is full of superb writing, and that is precisely its problem. Billed as a "novel in confessions," Which Brings Me to You consists of a series of letters exchanged by two young lovers-in-the-making. Jane is a feminist studies professor, and John is a media guy turned struggling artist. Both are a few years beyond their roaring twenties and seeking some of the adult stability they are trying hard to imagine.

They meet at a wedding, proceed directly to the coat closet and nearly consummate their acquaintance. But John demurs at the last moment, blubbering about how he may really like Jane and all, and how he doesn't want this one to end like all the others, etc. The couple agrees to exchange letters -- the retro, ink-on-paper-sort -- and get to know each other by confessing all their sad and lousy loves.

While not a particularly believable premise, it's made interesting by the fact that the letters are written by two authors. Julianna Baggott, writing for Jane, is a creative writing teacher at Florida State University; Steve Almond, voicing John, is a writing teacher at Boston College. They both got MFAs at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They are widely published and frequently awarded authors of short stories and novels.

The trouble is Jane's letters sound an awful lot as if they've been written by an award-winning author and writing instructor with an MFA. So, alas, do John's. To say this spoils the fun is to understate.

Take, for instance, Jane's remembrance of high school boys: "I loved them with primal biology; I loved them because of an internal bent, a moist yearning imprinted heavily on my genes, perhaps passed down through my mother, stunted (and highly polished, too) by her need for romance."

And here John remembers: "Eve herself, who smelled luxurious from the shower, smoothed down in amaretto lotion, who went off to work in the city and returned with wads of grubby dollar bills and cabernet on her breath, who smoked on the window sill and wore her floppy breasts in scented bras . . . took me up to her rooftop to make love on the hot tar."

Yo, Jane, John: Quit your day jobs and get fellowships at the Iowa Writers' Workshop!

That said, several of these letters make wonderful short stories, ripe with keen observations, vivid ex-lovers and razor diction. They accumulate into a pair of satisfying character studies. But as each letter ends with its "signature," one is inevitably reminded that the authors have made these characters speak in voices that could not be their own, and, finally, the book falls apart.

How did two such accomplished authors blunder into such an obvious trap? Perhaps the book's epistolary conceit encouraged an unproductive sense of competition. In any case, it feels as if Baggott and Almond couldn't resist trying to outwit and outperform each other, at the expense of the work's integrity.

A man and a woman competing rather than cooperating on the playing field of love? Imagine that.

Reviewed by Craig Stoltz / Reviewed by Claudia Deane
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill (April 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156512443X
• ISBN-13: 978-1565124431
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #572,694 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Dance of the Seven Veils, June 10, 2007

By	Linda Bulger (Avon, Maine) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book caught my eye in an overseas airport. Looking, as always, for something absorbing to make a long, long trip more bearable, I thought "Which Brings Me To You" might turn off the tape recorder in my own head and free me from my own introspection. It certainly did that! Sydney to LAX to Detroit to Portland, I was an eager audience for Jane and John's "Dance of the Seven Veils."

These two thirty-somethings meet at a wedding and nearly have sex in the coat closet, then don't and decide to correspond instead. The premise may be unrealistic and the language overheated, but I never mind that in a book -- if you do, then choose something else to read. But if you ever went through that fervent dorm-room phase of trying to summarize yourself to someone who knows nothing of your history, you probably will wish you could have done it with as much wit, self-deprecation and inventiveness of language as Julianna Baggott and Steve Almond brought to this little piece. So seductive, the rhetorical substitution of part for whole, the desire to explain ourselves by explaining what we do and how we feel about it. Have you ever believed that if you could just find the right words, you could give your listener a perfect knowledge of yourself? (Can't happen!) And for that matter, have you ever thought that would be a good thing?

Jane and John are looking for acceptance, or possibly absolution, and they seem to find it in each other. Meanwhile the reader is entertained by passages of unexpected language. Jane writes, "I waited tables at Charles Village Pub and was under the mistaken impression that my life was a work of art... I don't think I have to state this but we weren't really artistes. We were PEZ dispensers with pink candy pop ideology." And a similarly self-aware passage from John: "It hadn't occurred to me, until just then, that Sunny might be interested in me. She was in this category of mother and suddenly she had slid into this seemingly-remote-but-actually-adjacent category of woman, sexual being, potential hoochie-coocher."

The reader might wonder at what point and through what agent did Jane and John have their epiphanies? Or you could just go with the flow and enjoy the imagery. Each letter offers a self-contained story and there is little sense of progression to the book, so once you understand the premise you can more or less pick it up anywhere. I recommend this book to any reader who loves an unusual turn of phrase and doesn't require a linear plot. Julianna and Steve, it must have been a fun book to write!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding!, May 20, 2006

By	Eric Wrisley (Akron, Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read this cover to cover in 4 days. This alone is somewhat remarkable, as I usually forget that I am in the middle of a book and a few days later realize, "oh, was I reading something?" This one I could barely put down. Although it's a "novel" of sorts, it's really comprised of a series of short stories that build on each other, which makes for easy reading.

What is particularly striking is that the reader is immediately drawn to the characters, and as the story develops, they become more and more like people I know, er, uh, myself. They become likeable in spite of (or perhaps because of) their shortcomings. They're like the rest of us - some good, some bad, and very complicated.

Jane especially unfolds into different versions of herself, just like she says. It's held together by the fact that she acknowledges that, and sees that in herself.

John (Ted??) is at first little flatter, and his motivations aren't always clearly understood. Most of this comes into focus through the course of the stories, as he sorts it out with his therapist and Jane.

When it looks like it's heading for a romp in a coat closet, the expectation is for a light-hearted story. Instead, Baggot and Almond let the complexity and messiness of life take over. What develops is an intense, big story, made up of these equally powerful little stories that go back and forth in letters. The last third of the book was extremely moving, and pretty much had me in tears most of the time.

The one unbelievable part is that these two random strangers turn out to be such great story tellers, and they found each other. But then, I guess that's the unbelievable thing about any relationship.

What I mean by all this is "wow."

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride, May 2, 2006

By	James L. Thomas "James Ladd Thomas" (Sanford, FL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The work provides another blow to the straightjacket, mind numbing culture of romance in the good old U.S. of A. The narrative explores two people's past lovers, and they do come close to hooking-up when they first meet at a wedding, but they do not grab the "let's get to know each other" handle as a way to do it the "right way," though the male is the one who pops the 'chute before they sate their lusts. No, what happens is true to life: they realize as they narrate their loves that human beings are incredibly complex and live incredibly complex lives, especially ones who seek an active life, thus there really isn't "the one." They do contemplate the question of whether it's best to be loved or understood, but that's a product of the prevailing culture of romance. What they and the readers come to understand is that our complexity makes sustaining the romantic ideal a fair bet at best. In fact, the two epistolary lovers know at the end that they are both committed to the quest for love, whatever that entails. As Baggott quotes from The Confessions of Saint Augustine, "And what was it that delighted me? Only this--to love and be loved," the two come to realize that the quest for love is part of the human condition, whether you stay with a lover for one month, one year, ten years, forty years is irrelevant. The challenge is whether you are willing to put your heart on the chopping block, and they wonder along with us if many of the ones who continue on are really the ones who have decided to walk off the field, the battle over. The letters are achingly funny and honest, a respite from the dominant simple-minded culture of these early years of the twenty-first century.