Elizabeth Harris’s witty first novel, How to Sleep at Night, has an irresistibly funny premise: Ethan and Gabe, a smart couple with a five-year-old daughter, have a peaceful life in a New Jersey suburb until Ethan announces he wants to run for Congress. This would be fine, since Gabe is a supportive spouse, except for one tiny divisive detail: Ethan is a conservative Republican, while Gabe is a leftie Democrat.
What is to be done? Gabe reluctantly agrees to support Ethan during the campaign, though he refuses to participate in politics; but can the marriage survive Ethan’s role as a candidate who schmoozes with gun lobbyists and plays golf with opponents to gay marriage? Ethan insists to an angry Gabe that these men all like “gay people,” especially gay families like their own, and would never revoke gay marriage. Gabe angrily reminds him of what happened to abortion.
Jane Austen would admire the dialogue if not the politics: Harris’s charming characters are witty under pressure. Fortunately, Ethan has a trustworthy friend: he chats about his political misery to his gay sister-in-law, Kate Keller, an award-winning reporter. She is another startled Democrat. “It’s been years since Ethan said anything about wanting to run for office. Have you guys been talking about this?”
“We have not. I thought this dream died on the rock of middle age. Whenever it comes up, Ethan remains perfectly calm and I feel like my brain is going to explode out of my ears.”
O New York City! It’s not as much fun as Kate had hoped; it may not even be as much fun as New Jersey. This lonely workaholic feels isolated and no longer likes her job. So when her old girlfriend, Nicole, a vamp-turned-suburban-trophy-wife, contacts her on social media, Kate is thrilled. But she should not be thrilled, since Nicole ghosted her in college, and everyone, especially Gabe, reminds Kate of her desolation at that time.
Nicole is utterly self-centered. Alienated from her kind if distant Republican husband, she hates being stuck in the ‘burbs of New Jersey with two kids. If she had foreseen that Kate would become a success, Nicole might have stayed with her. That’s one of the fantasies. Nicole is annoyed that she gambled on the wrong horse. But whatever horse Nicole had gambled on would have been the wrong horse. Yet she is capable of change, if she can only find confidence in herself. But she has a habit of rejecting people as soon as it is convenient.
I enjoyed Harris’s sharp characterization and witty dialogue, but I wish the scenes had meshed together more neatly. Were we to diagram the book, Nicole, her husband, and kids would form a shadowy parallel to Gabe, Ethan, and Chloe. But the differences between the families lie in the attitudes and sensibilities of Gabe and Nicole: Gabe has a meaningful teaching job at a public school, and loves his time with his family; while Nicole has no job, worries that she has no qualifications, and is resentful, angry, aggrieved, and judgmental of her peers.
Kate is the link between the two families, though she does not bring them together. Soon she falls hopelessly in love with Nicole, while Nicole feels affection but will dump her if convenient.
And so this charming novel, with all its potential for meaningful symmetry, doesn’t quite achieve the heights. There is something missing – some revelation or feeling – some way to establish Nicole’s presence in the design. But this is a smart, fun book about love, work, politics, and domesticity. .A great weekend read!
Elizabeth Harris, a reporter at The New York Tunes, provides the pertinent details about journalistic burn-out and explores the blurring of journalistic ethics. And if there’s one thing we learn, it is that careers and families are very fragile.