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Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
336 pages
Published April 2011 by Penguin Group
Source: the publisher and TLC Book Tours

Lincoln is not happy in his job as the night shift IT guy at the newspaper. There's not nearly enough work for him to do and one of his official duties is to monitor the company's email filtering system, making sure that employees are not using the computers for personal purposes or using certain language. Lincoln is living in a rut outside of his job as well. He's spent most of the last ten years in college, earning two Master's degrees and living with his mother.  His sister is at him constantly to move on from the broken heart he suffered his freshman year of college that started his downward spiral, but Lincoln just doesn't it in him to develop a plan for the future.

"Love. Purpose. Those are the things that you can't plan for. Those are the things that just happen. And what if they don't happen? Do you spend your whole life pining for them? Waiting to be happy?"

Beth and Jennifer are friends who also work at the newspaper. They know their emails are monitored but they just don't seem to care. When emails between the pair start popping up in the filter that Lincoln is reading, he finds himself drawn into their worlds, their friendship. Jennifer tells Beth about her anxiety about having children and Beth tells Jennifer about the problems in her relationship with her boyfriend, a local rock musician. They talk about their mothers, their jobs, their appearance...everything.

Soon Lincoln realizes that he's fallen in love with Beth.Then Beth starts talking about a cute guy in the building. "My Cute Guy" she calls him. Then one day, as he's reading an email between the women, Lincoln realizes that he is Beth's cute guy. But there's no way Lincoln can possibly approach Beth. No way he can explain how he knows so much about her. No way he can explain why he's been to see her boyfriend's band perform so often. But somehow, all of this has finally caused Lincoln to start taking the tiny steps he needs to take to move on with his life.

Rowell uses an unusual style in this novel. The narrative switches between a third-person point of view when we're looking at Lincoln's side of the story while switching to an epistolary (email version) style for the conversations between Beth and Jennifer.  This did take some getting used to but given the premise that we're introduced to Beth and Jennifer because of their email dispatches, it seemed appropriate to continue in the vein. Rowell creates likable characters and it was enjoyable to watch each of the three leads slowly grow over the course of the year-long span of the book. 

One of my favorite characters in the book was the city itself.  My city. It's always fun to read a book set in the place where you live, particularly when it's written by a person that knows that place, who refers to places that are familiar. The story starts in August of 1999 and, in addition to bringing the hype of Y2K back to mind, Rowell revisits events and places of note in the city at the time including a concert venue that has now been torn down to make room for a Wal-Mart and the fight to save the last Cinemarama theater in the country.

Having read Rowell's column in our local paper for years, I had an idea what style her writing might take in a novel, what I hoped to find in a novel written by Rowell. I was not disappointed. Her style is light and humorous, as in this exchange between Beth and Jennifer:

"<> It wasn't much of a story: I went to get some M&M'S from the break room today, and ended up in line behind the publisher at the snack machine. I was sure he would choose a conservative and traditional snack--perhaps mixed nuts or a great American Hershey's bar--but, no, he went right for the Salsa Verde Doritos.

<> This is at odds with everything I thought I understood about our editorial policy.

<> I know. How can someone who eats Salsa Verde Doritos so vehemently oppose gay marriage?

<> And affirmative action.

<> And traffic roundabouts."

Rowell is no slouch at writing heartwarming and heartbreaking as in this conversation between Lincoln and his high school sweetheart, Sam, who he followed to California for college and who is pulling away from him:

""You're reminding them that I'm other," she said. "That I'm a freshman, that I'm not from around here. I need them to look at me and see my role. To see my talent and nothing else. You're reminding them that I have this cloying Heartland backstory.:

"What cloying?" he asked.

"The adoring-Germanic-farm-boy thing."

"I'm not a farm boy."

"To them, you are," she said.""

This quote is just for my family. It's not meant to be funny, and I always love when authors use words that are out of the ordinary, but I laughed out loud when I read it because of a conversation my family had years ago:

"The Village Inn had reached its 3:00 A.M. nadir when Lincoln got up to leave."

Thanks to TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour; it was a pleasure to see what Rowell is capable of when she's got a full novel in which to play. For other, perhaps less biased reviews, check out what the rest of the reviewers on the tour think of this freshman effort.

Sunday Salon - April 3

First off, I need to say happy birthday to my nephew, who is celebrating his 21st birthday today. I can still vividly remember seeing him for the first time. He weighed over 9 1/2 lbs when he was born; big enough that when my then 3 year old son wanted to hold him, I let him. Love that picture!

This month at Lit and Life, I'm going to be talking a lot about Omaha and Nebraska authors. I realized one day that I had books for review this month from both Timothy Schaffert and Rainbow Rowell and that I also had Mary Helen Stefaniak's The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia on my shelves. I'm always jealous that so many of you get to attend great author events but I suddenly realized that there are plenty of authors right here to be excited about.

Rainbow Rowell

Rainbow Rowell, in addition to be the author Attachments, which I'm currently reading, is a columnist for the Omaha newspaper who just happened to write an article about the same subject and introduced me to a lot of new names.I'll be reviewing Attachments tomorrow then I hope to get to The Bookworm book store next week to have her sign my copy. She'll also be in Des Moines and Kansas City soon. I've been reading Rainbow's articles since she first started writing for the paper (I can't tell you how much I missed that female voice when she left for a while!) so I feel a little bit like I've watched her grow up!

Timothy Schaffert

Timothy Schaffert's latest book is The Coffins of Little Hope which I'll be reviewing next week. I'm also looking forward to seeing Schaffert that week, also at The Bookworm, and having my book signed. You've heard me talk about Schaffert before; he's the driving force behind Omaha Lit Fest which I discovered last year. The Coffins of Little Hope is getting great reviews; no surprise there, it is published by Unbridled Books. They never let me down! Schaffert's going to be hitting the road in May; look for him in Milwaukee, Chicago and Iowa City.

Are any local authors on your reading plans soon?

Fairy Tale Friday - The Princess In Disguise

Because it's April Fool's Day, I thought a fairy tale about trickery was in order, so this week I read The Princess in Disguise, wherein a princess disguises herself first to flee her father and then to trap herself a husband.

Once upon a time there was a queen who was dying. Shortly before she died, she made her husband, the King, promise not to remarry unless the woman was a beautiful as the Queen was and had hair as golden. After she died, the King's men searched far and wide but never could find such a woman for the King to take as a second wife. So the King finally decided that he would marry his daughter (I know, yuck!).When he told his daughter his plan, she was creeped out by the idea as well. To put him off, she told him that she first she wanted three gowns, one as golden as the sunshine, one as silvery as the moon and one as glittering as the stars. She also asked for a mantle made from a thousand skins of rough fur sewn together. Impossible tasks, thought she. But she was wrong. So when the King presented them to her, she decided she needed to run away. One night she folded the gowns up so small that they fit in a nut shell (what the heck material were these dresses made of?), stained her hands and face with the juice from a walnut, and took three gold tokens with her before she left, a ring, a spinning wheel, and a hook.

She walked all night then fell asleep in a forest. It just so happened that day the King of that country's men were out hunting and thought the girl was some new kind of animal. Fortuitously, the King ordered the animal captured alive and when the men found that this was a girl and not an animal, they decided to try to help her. They brought her back to their castle where she became an assistant to the cook and was known as Roughskin. Some time later, the King was hosting a party and Roughskin asked to watch the visitors arrived and the cook agreed. Swiftly, the princess, washed off her face and hands and changed into the gold dress and joined the guests. The King was enchanted but the princess left without telling him who she was. Later the King asked for a bowl of soup and the cook let Roughskin make the soup. Into the soup she dropped the gold ring. When the King asked the cook about it, she said she hadn't made the soup and Roughskin said that she didn't know where the ring came from.

The next time visitors were coming, the princess did the same thing with with the silver dress. Again the king was taken by her but again she disappeared. This time when he asked for soup, she dropped in the golden spinning wheel, then , as Roughskin, denied knowing anything about it. The third time the King had guests, the princess donned the shimmering dress but the King was smart and snuck the ring on her finger before she left (really? she didn't feel that?). The princess was late getting back and this time didn't fully get her face stained and could only hide her dress under her mantle. When she sent the king the soup, she dropped in the hook. When he came to the kitchen, he saw uncovered the princess and found the ring on her finger. She finally told him all of her history. Where upon he asked her to marry him and "they lived happily till their death."

This is actually quite a short story that carries quite a lot of symbolism. The number three repeatedly appears in the story (three dresses, three golden pieces, and three attributes that made the princess appeal to the king), a number that was historically significant. The attributes of the princess (wealth, beauty and the ability to cook) are symbolic of the way men have traditionally valued women. Each of the golden pieces is symbolic on its own. The ring, given first, represents a promise; the spinning wheel represents femininity; and the hook...well, the hook is obvious, isn't it? It's interesting to note that the princess only had value when she was with her father or future husband but only when she was away from them did she have a name, her own identity.


For a humorous look at the story, checkout this version in play form.