Book Review: Cleaning Nabokov's House by Leslie Daniels

 

From the first page, I was drawn into this book and pulled through it, riveted. I almost felt like there were multiple books. The beginning starts out as a very literary book about a woman, Barb, fed up with her husband’s controlling ways, so she leaves him, but she doesn’t do it in the best way and it sets up some problems.

Again and again, the main character goes about things in a way that is totally left of center to me. At first it seemed like this might be due to depression. In fact, the anger and bitterness, seemingly born out of depression, and visited upon anything around her, is almost funny, but a little too hypercritical. It was really starting to get to me and I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep reading.

“There was the same horrendous taste in personal apparel, the same huge asses tucked forever into cars, the same vicious garden club, the same excessive and frightening niceness, the same silence that could be peace or utter isolation.”

As she mourns her situation though, coming out from under the thumb of oppression by her regimented husband, she makes friends and it slowly starts to lift. Strangely, it turns into a women’s lit about life, sex, female friendships, and getting by. Then she meets a hunk of a carpenter and it starts to turn into a Rom Com.  

*Spoilers below, though not too many.*

There are many moments that are pretty farcical. I mean, the social worker starts dating her ex-husband. Or her mother, who told her for two years in a row that “Grandma is in Florida and can’t come for Christmas” because she couldn’t admit that Grandma was dead.

The main character is not weighed down by societal norms, and yet she is. She doesn’t think twice about leaving a car by the side of the road, unbolting the plates, and walking away, or opening a bordello to service women. But she’s supremely aware of her clothes, or rather lack of appropriate attire for situations. And she never seems to consider that splitting with her husband would have a profound impact on her children, that they might be angry or sad, until the teacher calls her because they are acting out.

The writing style is a bit minimalist. I appreciate leaving some things to the readers imagination but sometimes it felt like there was a lack of reaction by the main character to things that happened. She did this, then she did this, but without thinking things through, considering options, and making a choice. The character would skip all that and leap right into doing. It left me disconcerted at times.

Even the name given to the town was grating, Onkwedo. Apparently an homage to Nabokov, it was annoying every time I heard it in my head, like a goose honking.

In the end, I found this a fascinating ride, but a disquieting journey. I would recommend it for an funny, irreverent, entertaining, journey, but not definitely not a relaxing read.