Book Notes: Joyce Maynard’s Under the Influence

Female friendship can be poisonous. Joyce Maynard’s novel Under the Influence narrates how a woman throws away a possibility of a happy, quiet family life over a friendship that promises excitement, fun, and a reflected light of somebody else’s glamor.

Years after writing this novel Joyce Maynard became infected with TDS, and everything she has written since 2020 is embarrassing. This novel, however, is good, and its sensibility is profoundly conservative. Maynard writes in defense of normalcy, family, and contentment. Chasing excitement, especially when you are no longer very young, is a terrible idea. Helen, the main character, finds out when it’s too late that nobody’s life is free of burdens and that the era of youthful friendships should give way to the time when one makes a family.

It’s a very good novel, the characters are believable, the plot is never boring, and while the protagonist is very annoying in her immaturity and flightiness, she’s also endearing in her love for her small child. I read the book in one very enjoyable snow day, and I haven’t had this much fun since Moa Herngren’s novel The Divorce. As we all understand, I will now proceed to read Maynard obsessively because it’s not easy to find an author one can enjoy this much.