Theresa Rebeck is a world-renowned playwright, novelist, producer, screenwriter and TV writer. Basically, when you look up the word “accomplished,” you may find her name next to it. She defines and defies what it means to be a working writer in the overstuffed world of today’s media. So who better than Rebeck to write a book about an ill-fated, star-crossed love affair between a pious doctor and his first and truest love, a sexy, cantankerous actress? As their profiles in their respective careers rise, they find themselves drawn back to each other time and again. I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU is a lovely confection of a novel, a fast-paced look at the ways in which love doesn’t fit into nice little packages of ribbon-wrapped perfection, as much as our highly quantified world tries to do just that.

Alison, the haughty, pretty actress, and Kyle, the well-meaning, big-hearted doctor who wants to save the world, never found the right way for them to meld their worlds together. But as both become more and more entrenched in different versions of the American dream --- one a Hollywood dream, the other a suburban nightmare --- the initial attraction that kept them on and off since high school keeps raising its head. Will they or won’t they? Like a good procedural romance, such as those on “NYPD Blue” (for which Rebeck once wrote and won multiple awards), the cliffhanger of their relationship keeps the story moving along. In fact, I wanted a little more possibility mixed in with the anticipation.

"I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU is deceptively simple, written with a fast pace and semi-comic tone that doesn’t belie the deep ennui in both the protagonists.... a rereadable joy by a writer who is at the peak of her craft..."

Rebeck likes suspense and gives us plenty of that while watching how their relationships with others give an indication that what they found in each other was something they will both eventually succumb to and enjoy, if they know what’s good for them. But do they know what’s good for them? Alison’s rise to fame and her strange relationships with pushy journalists, coupled with Kyle’s strangely foundering relationship with his beautiful trophy wife, kids and home, keep bringing them back in touch with their need to rediscover the people they were with each other, the sincere and authentic individuals they wished to be when they grew up, and the dreams they both gave up in order to survive the adult world without each other.

I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU is deceptively simple, written with a fast pace and semi-comic tone that doesn’t belie the deep ennui in both the protagonists. They each come from families that have never let them grow up and who keep pushing information on their first love at them whenever either of them has contact with their homes. It’s a poignant look at the choices we make and the difference between wanting to be an adult and actually surviving as an adult in a crazy, overcrowded, overinformed world. It’s also a highly entertaining look at old love, maybe true love, and the usual compromises we make for the sake of sanity. Rebeck infuses all of these elements with a quiet authority that gives the book greater heft than the story seems to deserve. It’s a literary look at American life that will surely find an army of supporters and should get passed around as a fun, fast read. But every reader will carry its inherent beauty with them as they close the back cover. 

Let’s hope that I’M GLAD ABOUT YOU, a rereadable joy by a writer who is at the peak of her craft, will be followed up quickly by another Rebeck gem.