In Every Way

Maria, the 19-year-old heroine of Brown’s disarming new novel, is having a time of it. She is pregnant; her mother, Karen, has stage four breast cancer; and her boyfriend, Jack, is cheating on her. Maria gives her baby up in a closed adoption to a couple, Philip and Nina, from Beaufort, N.C. When Karen decides she needs a change of scene, she heads from her home in Chapel Hill to Beaufort with Maria. Quickly bored, Maria begins stalking Philip and Nina and her daughter, Bonny (short for Bonacieux), who is now a few months old. Eventually, Maria applies for a job as their babysitter, not telling the unsuspecting couple who she really is. Maria loves spending time with her daughter, sketching her and even breastfeeding her. Things become complicated when Maria sleeps with Philip, and Jack arrives in town, trying to win her back. It all becomes too much for Maria, who hightails it back to Chapel Hill alone to face an uncertain future. The plot is reminiscent of Juno, if Juno were older and decided to befriend her child’s adoptive parents post- instead of pre-partum. Unlike that movie, this novel doesn’t settle for easy laughs. Instead, Brown (Doubles) burrows into his main character’s psyche to dramatize what it is like to be a young person trying to grow up in a world without signposts. Populated with other quirkily complex characters, this meditation on what it means to be a mother is memorable and affecting. (Feb.)