Canadian-born and
currently a die-hard New Yorker, Frannie Mackenzie is content with her life as an editor
at “The Pithy Review”. Living her life in the carelessly hectic manner of all
New Yorkers, shopping, eating, and drinking her merry way, she meets and starts casually
dating laconic experimental jazz musician Calvin, who’s also a fellow Canadian.
Before long, Frannie unexpectedly barfs up all over the sweater display at the Gap. This,
taken in conjunction with bigger boobs, tighter jeans and maniacal appetite, just gives
Frannie further incontrovertible proof that she’s going to be a mama. Shocked and
disbelieving, Frannie is uncertain what to feel when she’s expecting.
Soon, somewhat resigned
and also a mite ecstatic at the prospect of impending motherhood, Frannie wonders whether
to inform the father of the prospective unexpected increase in his family members. But he
takes off on a European tour, while she loses her visa and has to perforce remain in
Canada, where her mother analyzes her, her father flutters about ineffectively and her
brother most condescendingly asks her to house-sit for him. And all the while poor Frannie
laments going off cocktails, coffee and missing the opportunity of having the great affair
of her life with a famous literary personality and giving up having fun, and generally
learns to cope with the new changes in her life with copious wanted and unwanted advise
from friends, family and acquaintances.
And then Calvin turns up.
Does this mean there is a happy ending in sight, or is there more?
Patricia Pearson brings
to life, in a sometimes comical and sometimes poignant manner, the joys, the angst and the
changes of accidental pregnancy and unexpected motherhood through her quirky and
completely believable protagonist, Frannie Mackenzie. From not recognizing the symptoms of
pregnancy (as Frannie thinks, it’s not at all like how it is shown generally in the
movies and books), to coming to terms with the fact that a life is growing inside of you
and soon you’ll be a parent (and a grown-up, as poor Frannie despondingly realizes)
and be responsible for the child’s entire development for years to come (a
frightening prospect for an anxiety-attack prone Frannie), and then telling people
(specifically your parents) about it and without a father in sight and then coping with
all the anticipated terrors of labor, and its reality and aftermath – all of this
Pearson brings to life in minute and very amusing details. Riddled with pithy comments and
side-splittingly funny observations, the saga still has an underlying sense of pathos
about it, and brings up a silent but deep question of whether parenthood is for everybody.
Frannie is like the girl next door, who unhesitatingly puts into words what others only
think and never say, and who’s very refreshing and honest because of it, so much so
that the humorous aspect of it is almost a side thought. Charming, filled with surprising
laughter and various convincing characters, and without a plot in sight, “Playing
House” is a delight to read!
Reviewed By Rashmi Srinivas
for The Road to Romance
November 11, 2003 |
