Jennifer Weiner understands women, and her new novel, “This Summer,” shows why

Jennifer Weiner’s latest novel, “That Summer,” is a #MeToo story. In a broader sense, each of the 15 novels Weiner wrote could best be described as “me too” stories. Her heroines are almost always intelligent, self-deprecating outsiders who have not been “seen” by the world. Some feel estranged from the normative roles of wife and mother. (“Me too,” think many Weiner readers.)

Others feel bad about being “plus size” in a world where a woman, again, can never be too thin. (“Me too.”) Still others feel cosmically lonely or invisible or ashamed that they have to take a pill or another glass of wine to get through the day. (“Me too”, “Me too”, Me too. “)

Weiner has made a major literary career writing compelling popular novels that take women seriously. At its core, her stories are about women trying to hold on to themselves in a world determined to diminish them.

“This Summer” is more of a political novel than most as its plot is informed by the rise of the #MeToo movement and the drastic change in attitude towards men who say their actions should be excused because of their youth. or that the victims were drunk or dressed. provocative or… just because.

The entangled stories of “That Summer” are about two women, both named Diana, who have been hurt in different ways by a man. And this is only the beginning of what these “two Dianas” have in common.

“That Summer” opens with a prologue which is a long held breath. Weiner writes it in the present tense, as if the memory he evokes keeps replaying in a loop:

“She was fifteen that summer, a thoughtful and fascinated girl, with hazel eyes with long lashes and a leggy body that still didn’t quite look like her. She lives in a townhouse in South Boston with her parents and two sisters, and attends a private school in Cambridge on a scholarship, where she mostly earns B’s, with the exception of A’s in English and Art. She dreams of falling in love.

This is Diana Starling, who takes a mother’s helper job on Cape Cod during this distant summer and meets a crowd of school children on the beach and is encouraged to believe that one of them – a handsome sensitive guy named “Poe” – really, really love him.

He invites her over to a bonfire on the last night of summer and, as Diana sits next to him, drinking something he handed her from a red Solo mug, she thinks, “It’s the best night of my life. ” It’s not. For years, the traumatized Diana struggles, fails, and still struggles to heal from the violence inflicted on her that night.

Daisy Shoemaker, our other “Diana”, is a 30 year old woman and mother who lives on the Tony Main Line outside of Philadelphia. Although her first name is Diana, she was renamed “Daisy” by her husband, Hal, while dating. Daisy considers herself “short and stocky,” unlike Hal, an older corporate lawyer who keeps fit.

Daisy is a wonderful cook and once dreamed of becoming a food writer, but her father’s untimely death and her marriage at age 20 derailed those ambitions. Now Daisy feels lost and isolated, patronized by her husband and rejected by her artistic and rebellious teenage daughter Beatrice.

When Daisy begins receiving emails intended for the other Diana (their email addresses are almost identical), the two begin an online correspondence that quickly turns into a in-person friendship. But these misdirected emails turn out not to be as random as they initially appeared.

Weiner’s braided plot not only alternates between the lives of two Dianas, but moves through time. The longest and most captivating section takes place on Cape Cod, where adult Diana Starling returns to live, working as a waitress and breathing in a magical place she loved before it turned into a nightmare.

One of Weiner’s distinctive strengths as a writer is his ability to realistically depict how people change bodies and souls. In her 2009 novel, “Best Friends Forever,” Weiner described how her heroine, Addie Downs, gradually emerged from her cocoon of loneliness and superfluous weight. Here, Diana’s unfinished healing spans decades in Cape Town.

When adult Diana first returns to Cape Town during the offseason thanks to a cottage loan, the restaurant manager who hires her instantly sees her as a potential ‘washashore’, meaning ‘the misfits … the people who wash here and decide to stay. “

Diana’s lonely first year – filled with grueling restoration work, weekly library visits to stock up on novels, morning swims in the ocean, and the loving company of a rescue dog – ends up transforming into a busy life. Weiner writes incisively, but with restraint, about Diana’s gradual process of reclaiming some measure of peace.

“That Summer” is a captivating and nuanced novel about the long and terrible aftermath of sexual assault and the things that can be stolen from women and that can never be fully restored. But, because it’s a Jennifer Weiner novel, it’s not a controversy. It’s rewarding in its own way. Weiner seems to be a firm believer in the saving grace of humor, the ability of time to open up possibilities, and the strength of female friendship. Me too.