{"id":11877,"date":"2010-03-01T11:06:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-01T15:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=11877"},"modified":"2021-12-30T23:43:31","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T03:43:31","slug":"jennifer-egan-ask-me-if-i-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2010\/03\/01\/jennifer-egan-ask-me-if-i-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Egan: \u201cAsk Me If I Care\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/span><\/div>

“Ask Me If I Care”<\/strong><\/span>
\nby Jennifer Egan<\/span>
\nfrom the March 8, 2010 issue of\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p><\/h3><\/div>

\"Click<\/a>T<\/span>he first author to have two pieces of fiction published in 2010 is Jennifer Egan\u00a0— and it comes fairly early in the year\u00a0— \u201cSafari\u201d was published just less that two months ago in the January 11 issue. I didn\u2019t mind that story, but I didn\u2019t like it either.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m anxious to see what people thought of this story because for me it is so far the best of the year, just above \u201cFoster,\u201d which I rated highly but not as high as others. Perhaps my enjoyment was because I wasn\u2019t expecting much; I didn\u2019t enjoy \u201cSafari.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAsk Me If I Care,\u201d though, was compelling from beginning to end. Often when a short story writer writes about teenage anger it comes across as contrived and overblown, but I think Egan succeeded in making it feel real\u00a0— or unreal, as the narrator admits.<\/p>\n

The story follows a group of teens\u00a0beginning to experience the adult world in San Francisco\u00a0just before 1980. The narrator is Rhea, a girl with freckles trying to pose as a punk, but\u00a0there are no punks with freckles. Rhea has a crush on Bennie who is in a punk band with Scotty. Bennie has a crush on Alice, but we get the impression early on that Alice loves Scotty.\u00a0Also in the mix is Rhea\u2019s\u00a0best friend\u00a0Jocelyn, who has recently been picked up by a forty-year-old man with children named\u00a0Lou\u00a0— but this might be good for the group of friends because Lou has a production studio.<\/p>\n

What I found so impressive with this story was the writing. It had a rhythm that gave shape and contour to the ugly world these teens face as well as to the subtle realizations Rhea stumbles into. I believe this showcase of writing is what makes this work stand out from other similar stories because the texture makes it feel both soft and ragged at the same time, which is a good way to render a story about teenage angst.<\/p>\n