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Mary Jane

Review

Mary Jane

With immersive storytelling and a searing coming-of-age narrative, Jessica Anya Blau’s MARY JANE is a tender, humorous and invigorating novel about growing up and learning that your parents might not always be right.

Fourteen-year-old Mary Jane Dillard is a well-behaved but unassuming girl. She enjoys helping her mother prepare meals for her father, singing in her church’s choir and collecting records full of Broadway showtunes. In the summer of 1975, however, she takes on a babysitting gig for the Cones, a new family in her Roland Park neighborhood, deemed the “finest neighborhood in Baltimore” by her mother. When Mary Jane arrives there, she is shocked by the state of the house: clutter has accumulated on the stairs, Mrs. Cone is barely dressed, and her charge, Izzy, is like no one she has ever met before. Despite her conservative upbringing, she is fascinated by this family and agrees to babysit Izzy for the summer.

Mary Jane’s introduction to the Cone way of life is a hilarious adventure. She has never met a Jewish man like Dr. Cone before, she has never eaten cereal for dinner, and she certainly has never been around a family who shuts, hugs and kisses so much. She knows that her mother would be horrified by what she is being exposed to, but she finds the clutter, rambunctiousness and spontaneity refreshing. And then the real highlight of the summer comes: Dr. Cone, a psychiatrist, will be spending the next few months treating a rock star for addiction, and the beleaguered rocker will be living with them, along with his movie star wife. Because of their celebrity, Mary Jane is instructed that she must never reveal the Cones’ secret guests or their reasons for staying there. Already head-over-heels for Izzy, she agrees, despite knowing that this will be the biggest “lie” she has ever told her mother.

"With its deeply immersive setting --- the 1970s are brought vividly to life in music, fashion and more --- and a main character you can’t help but love, MARY JANE is an utterly charming novel full of oddities, joys and wit."

Mary Jane, who is more familiar with Broadway and church choir, cannot even begin to imagine who the rocker will be. But when the couple arrives, she recognizes his wife instantly: Sheba, the one-named star of “Family First!” a variety show beloved by even Mary Jane’s uptight mother. Her husband, Jimmy, is jaw-droppingly sexy, and his one-on-one sessions with Dr. Cone begin immediately, leaving Mrs. Cone, Izzy, Mary Jane and Sheba to form a sort of girl gang for the summer. Mrs. Cone and Sheba pair off frequently to don wigs and go shopping, drink wine or smoke weed. Mary Jane soon finds herself at the center of the household, cooking nutritious meals for the bohemian family, teaching Izzy the alphabet and starting the gargantuan task of tidying the house.

Remarkably, Mary Jane does not feel abused or overdrawn by the arrangement. Having been taught how to run a household by her mother, she relishes the opportunity to take charge and do something on her own for once. And despite their laidback ways, the Cones, Jimmy and Sheba truly respect, admire and treasure her. In a few short weeks, Mary Jane has assembled her own family, one that, unlike her parents, does not second-guess or limit her. They help her come into her own as a young woman without ever pressuring her or forcing her into anything beyond her comfort.

As Mary Jane and Izzy take center stage of the Cone-Jimmy-Sheba family, Mary Jane starts to realize that she has been missing the exact brand of zaniness that her new friends bring to the table. In scenes at home, Blau reveals that while the Dillard family is not abusive or cruel, they are removed and cold; Mary Jane is almost never hugged or encouraged, and her mother thrives on delivering WASP-like “constructive” criticism as cutting as it is helpful. But aside from learning that her family is more uptight and backwards than she ever knew, she now acknowledges that their worldview is incredibly racist and bigoted: Jewish people are crooks, Black men and women should “know their place,” addicts are just criminals and junkies.

When the Cones invite Mary Jane to a week away, she jumps at the chance, lying to her mother about an illness in the family that necessitates her supervision of Izzy. When she comes back, she is greeted face-to-face by her adolescence.

MARY JANE is a gorgeous coming-of-age novel, made all the more endearing by its colorful cast of characters. The premise of a teenage girl living in secret with a rock star and movie actress was compelling to me at first, but where I expected a lot of shocks and sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, Blau instead delivered tender moments of eye-opening realizations. Mary Jane is exposed to all of the hard-hitting topics I mentioned above, but she is never put in harm’s way. The Cones, Jimmy and Sheba come to truly love both her and Izzy, making the theme of found family all the more heartrending.

Comparing her intensely compartmentalized family to the Cones, Mary Jane explains, “In the Cone family, there was no such thing as containment. Feelings were splattered around the household…. To feel something was to feel alive. And to feel alive was starting to feel like love.” On Jimmy’s addiction she says, “Until I met Jimmy, I hadn’t understood that people you loved could do things you didn’t love. And, still, you could keep loving them.” It is this distinction that highlights for Mary Jane so clearly that her family’s love is distributed more like a meritocracy, whereas she is learning that it can arise naturally, organically and unstoppably. And with all the courage of a Jane Austen heroine, the pipes of a pop star and Izzy holding her hand, Mary Jane is ready to open up to the world and receive all the love it has to give.

With its deeply immersive setting --- the 1970s are brought vividly to life in music, fashion and more --- and a main character you can’t help but love, MARY JANE is an utterly charming novel full of oddities, joys and wit.

Reviewed by Rebecca Munro on May 14, 2021

Mary Jane
by Jessica Anya Blau

  • Publication Date: April 5, 2022
  • Genres: Fiction
  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Mariner Books
  • ISBN-10: 006305230X
  • ISBN-13: 9780063052307