Back in middle school, thanks to two full-time working parents and a lack of after-school activities, I became (perhaps too) familiar with “Three’s Company,” which played in syndication during those late-afternoon weekday hours. I’m pretty sure that at one point I had watched every episode, or close to it. So I was more than a little intrigued by the premise of Ashley Hutson’s debut novel, ONE’S COMPANY, which has the classic sitcom, in part, as its inspiration.

"...a fascinating and at times painful exploration of grief, an absurd and tragic vision of what life looks like when someone desperate to erase one’s self from one’s own life is given an unexpected outlet in which to do so."

Bonnie Lincoln turns to the show for solace first and foremost after surviving a violent trauma. Its predictable formula soothes her, and its weird inconsistencies keep her intrigued even after multiple viewings. She feels like the main characters --- Jack, Chrissy and especially Janet --- are her closest friends. So when Bonnie wins a huge lottery prize, she uses her unexpected windfall on what might seem to the rest of the world to be a truly oddball choice.

She purchases some secluded mountaintop property and --- after having them all sign strict non-disclosure agreements --- hires a staff to transform the place into a full-size replica of 1970s-era Santa Monica, complete with exact reproductions of the three friends’ apartment, their workplaces, and the apartments of all their friends and neighbors. And then, after the meticulously recreated set has been outfitted with period-appropriate books, magazines and even food packaging, Bonnie banishes her crew and proceeds to live out a life on the show, utterly alone. As she puts it, “The world was so haphazard and frightening, why not arrange it the way I wanted it? Why not?”

Bonnie immerses herself in the lives of the characters, essentially turning herself into each of them. But she’s never quite able to switch off her memories of what came before this carefully constructed new reality. In particular, her memories are haunted by thoughts of her one-time best friend, Krystal, who also was devastated by tragedy but whose experience of recovery looked very different.

ONE’S COMPANY is bizarre, surreal and heartbreaking all at the same time, especially as Bonnie’s artificial reality starts to break down. It’s easy to imagine, given the novel’s premise, that her story is farcical or jokey, but it’s really not. Instead, it’s a fascinating and at times painful exploration of grief, an absurd and tragic vision of what life looks like when someone desperate to erase one’s self from one’s own life is given an unexpected outlet in which to do so.

In preparation for reading ONE’S COMPANY, I found a few streaming episodes of “Three’s Company” and watched them for the first time in probably 30 years. Doing so is definitely not necessary to appreciate this book, but it’s one way to envision the unique appeal of Bonnie’s imagined world.