Editorial Content for Motherland

Sometimes it seems as if everybody who's anybody lives in Brooklyn. Beekeeping hipsters live there, as do dozens of famous writers, a respectable number of actors, and, as Amy Sohn reminds readers in MOTHERLAND, thousands and thousands of well-to-do parents.

Interestingly enough, Sohn introduces readers to her cast of characters not in their native habitat but in Wellfleet, a middle-of-the-road resort town on Cape Cod. It's the end of August, and Sohn's characters are in search of one last gasp of summer before returning to their regularly (over)scheduled lives in Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood.

"Perhaps the most entertaining thing about Sohn's novel is untangling the various ways in which these characters' lives wrap around (and sometimes get knotted up with) each other. The book works much the way a neighborhood itself works --- by bringing together disparate people through accidents of geography and circumstance."

There's Rebecca, whose previous marital infidelity means that she's now hiding a pretty big secret from her husband…but once vacation is over, she starts to wonder whether he's hiding one of his own. There's Gottlieb, who is convinced that he's on the verge of making it big as a Hollywood screenwriter, no matter the consequences for his wife and children. And there's Marco, who's feeling a lot of pressure from his partner Todd to adopt another child, even though Marco --- not Todd --- will be the one doing the lion's share of the childcare.

As the novel progresses, we're also introduced to Karen, a newly-single mom whose husband left her for a transvestite named Valentina. Karen is worried about money, about starting to date again, and that she's no longer going to fit in to her neighbors' conventional (or so she thinks) lives. We also meet Melora Leigh, an actress who used to live in Park Slope; she's returning to New York for her latest attempt at career resuscitation, this time in a starring role on Broadway. She's having problems connecting not only with her director but also with her character; perhaps a little dip into Brooklyn's counterculture will be precisely what she needs.

MOTHERLAND is a sequel of sorts to Sohn's earlier novel, PROSPECT PARK WEST. Several characters surface in both novels, with some taking on more or less importance here. The good news is that it's not at all essential to have read the first book to enjoy the second one. Sohn excels at skewering the (self-)obsessions of her characters and of their worlds; more than that, she provides dozens of telling scenes and anecdotes that offer a detailed, if a tad biased, portrait of the neighborhood where MOTHERLAND is set.

Perhaps the most entertaining thing about Sohn's novel is untangling the various ways in which these characters' lives wrap around (and sometimes get knotted up with) each other. The book works much the way a neighborhood itself works --- by bringing together disparate people through accidents of geography and circumstance. Discovering those connections (or disconnections) is a less guilty pleasure than delighting in the over-the-top misfortunes that befall Sohn's privileged characters.