Vendela Vida -- Not Just Eggers' Wife

Vendela Vida's first novel, And Now You Can Go, has been sitting on my bookshelf for years now. I don't know where it came from or when it arrived. I'm guessing I bought it used. It has certainly been passed over time and time again -- I suppose I found it impossible to believe that someone who is Dave Eggers' wife got her novel published for any other reason than that she is Dave Eggers' wife. Also, the cover art suggests Oprah as its target audience.

But now there's this recession, and I'm not buying books (or anything else, sorry my usual gift recipients), and previously unworthy volumes are receiving a second consideration.

My apologies to Vendela Vida. Because she wrote a mostly beautiful/funny/sad novel about a young woman's reaction to being held up at gunpoint in Riverside Park. Looking beyond the unrealistically dramatic premise -- that after the protagonist walks away unharmed, everyone she ever knew, and many she hasn't even met, come out of the woodwork to console her -- the novel gets the sprightly intelligence of its main character just right.