I Should Have Said

You know how you always think of the perfect comeback -
five minutes/days/years too late?

Nico, the teenage narrator of Goldengrove, informs us the French have a phrase for this – “l'esprit d'escalier.” Nico, like most teenage girls, is obsessed with the wit of the staircase. Even more frustrating than coming up with a stellar retort too late is having an older sister who is never at a loss for words. Nico’s sister Margaret smokes, wears vintage, dates a painter, and sultrily sings jazz standards (“Is your figure less than Greek/Is your mouth a little weak/When you open it to speak/Are you smart?”). Nico takes these lines from “My Funny Valentine” especially to heart since they are the last lines she hears Margaret sing.

After Margaret dies, Nico attempts to work through her grief by doing Margaret things with Margaret’s boyfriend Aaron. No, not that. They go for drives. They watch old movies. But Nico knows all is not innocent. Rather than tell her parents of these outings, she asks one of her father’s bookstore employees, Elaine, to cover for her.

But as the summer progresses, Aaron wants to do other Margaret things. He asks Nico to wear Margaret’s clothes. He asks Nico to eat pistachio ice cream, Margaret’s favorite. After one particularly creepy scene involving the ice cream, Nico is no longer deluded into thinking Aaron is grieving for Margaret but realizes he’s trying to replicate Margaret. Elaine comforts Nico by renting Vertigo – illustrating Aaron isn’t the first guy to dress up a gal to look like a dead girlfriend.

Francine Prose crafts a believable teenage narrator in Nico blending the right amount of insecurity, insolence, and innocence. Sure her father owns a bookstore AND a lake house, but these idyllic settings inform the plot rather than distract from it. Despite the poem referenced by the title of this novel, it is not Margaret, but Nico, you’ll mourn for when the book comes to an end.