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At first glance, it might be tempting to file WHAT TO KEEP under the category of "Chick Lit." All the familiar elements of the genre are here: the single woman finding her way in New York, her conflicts with wacky family members, her struggles for career success. But this tender first novel by Rachel Cline couldn't be farther from the typical Chick Lit confection. Instead, it's simultaneously a poignant character study and a moving meditation on the changing definitions of family.
The novel is divided into three parts, each of which focuses on a particular moment in the life of its heroine, Denny Roman. In the first part, she's twelve and about to star in her school play. Her recently separated parents, both brilliant doctors, are too distracted by their own concerns to pay much attention to Denny or to show up for her performance. Instead, Denny's only parental figure --- "the only adult to whom she was neither confounding nor overwhelming" --- is the agoraphobic Maureen, who runs a business organizing the lives of successful but clueless folks like Denny's parents.
In the novel's second section, Denny, now in her mid-twenties and a struggling actress in Los Angeles, returns home to Ohio to help her mother and stepfather prepare for their move to New York City. As Denny decides which of her childhood memorabilia to keep and which to sell at a garage sale, her failed relationship with her mother comes to a head.
The final part, set in 2000 in New York City, shows us Denny as an up-and-coming playwright. This time her parents are willing to see her play, a fairly transparent allegory of their relationship. Meanwhile, Denny has a surprise visitor --- the twelve-year-old son of Maureen, who's now deceased. As Denny works to make sense of her relationship with her own mother, she considers whether she's ready to be a mother of sorts to young Luke.
WHAT TO KEEP is an unusual novel, with characters both quirky and pathetic (sometimes at the same time). Denny is an appealing and compelling character, growing from an awkward preteen starved for attention into a complex, confident woman who found success despite her mother's emotional absence. Instead of being resentful and bitter toward her mother, Denny develops a capacity to forgive and even to erase the mistakes of the past by becoming a mother figure herself.
The theme of moving runs throughout the novel, as does the theme of acting. Denny moves from Ohio to Los Angeles to New York, ironically following the parents who have for so long moved away from her both physically and emotionally. As she does so, she constantly reinvents herself, drawing on her own acting talents and her odd family dynamics to create her art and her life. Readers should consider themselves fortunate to be able to take this journey along with her.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
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