Marcy Dermansky on Mona Simpson’s Anywhere But Here

(Guest post by Marcy Dermansky) 

Anywhere But Here by Mona Simpson is one of the books that made me want to be a writer. I loved everything about it so much: the writing; Anne, the teenager protagonist; the complicated relationship with her mother. I loved the cover. I wanted to be able to create something like that. Basically, all of the short stories I wrote in my early twenties were about sad beautiful girls wanting more, and there it was, perfect in a book.

This is the first paragraph of Anywhere But Here:

We fought. When my mother and I crossed state lines in the stolen car, I’d sit against the window and wouldn’t talk. I wouldn’t even look at her. The fights came when I thought she broke a promise. She said there’d be an Indian reservation. She said that we’d see buffalo in Texas. My mother said a lot of things. We were driving from Bay City, Wisconsin, to California, so I could be a child star while I was a child.

It was such a relief, now, to pull this book from my bookshelf and love the first paragraph. I am entirely certain that I would love the book, again, if I decide to reread it. It’s a book I have read many times, but not in a long while. This is a book that I would pick up, open from the middle of the book, and read at random, like I did as a child with Little Women and The Little Princess. I am fairly certain that the sex scene in Twins where Chloe loses her virginity resembles Anne’s, the way she climbs on top, takes control, does not entirely enjoy herself. I am not going to confirm this because I do not want to get in trouble. Simpson’s novel was ingrained into my brain.

I found two very notable things that resonate with my own work. The first big one: the short sentences. Second: the plotting. The entire plot of Anywhere But Here is pretty much telegraphed in this first paragraph,  without actually giving anything away. It’s deceptively brilliant.

So, I went back and looked at the opening paragraphs of my own books. With the exception of The Red Car’s, they are almost freakishly short. The first paragraph in my first novel Twins is three lines long. The first paragraph of Bad Marie is only one line long. Very Nice, three. Hurricane Girl’s first paragraph  is also just one line.  

Here are the first four paragraphs of Hurricane Girl:

Allison Brody bought a beach house.

She was thirty-two years old.

Sick of everybody and everything.

All she wanted to do, more than anything, really, was swim.

I feel a little bit self-conscious now, looking at these short sentences. This could have been one paragraph. Maybe I was being a little bit showy. The paragraph that follows is longer. There are long sentences and short sentences. A little background about Allison’s family, her career. Description. Place. Everything gets set up. 

The beach house was small. It was in North Carolina, in foreclosure. She had put cash down, emptying her accounts, everything that she had. She used money that she had saved from waitressing, money saved from a small inheritance from father when he died, almost a year ago. She had sold a script, too, and made some okay money from that. A solid chunk. It was a horror script. It would not necessarily make a good film, but a famous actress had agreed to star in it, and so there could be more money. More scripts. Success.

I have written what I wanted to write when was in my twenties. A beautiful sad girl—well at 32, Allison is a woman—who wants more. As in Anywhere But Here, the plot of Hurricane Girl is telegraphed from the beginning. Allison will go to great lengths to have a swimming pool in her life. I want to say, won’t most people, but I have learned that this is not even remotely true.

Photo by Michael Lionstar

Marcy Dermansky is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie, and Twins and the soon to be released Hurricane Girl. She has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. She lives with her daughter in Montclair, New Jersey.