Ann Garvin
The underlying theme of Ann Garvin’s brisk new novel, I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around, is the struggle of the caregiver. Whether it’s caring for elderly parents or newborns, life gets complicated when your identity and desires disappear under a pile of responsibilities. Other people’s needs tug at us, and we end up lost and adrift.
That’s certainly the case for the book’s witty protagonist, Tig Monohan, a frazzled therapist whose problems pile up like so many diagnoses in a nursing home patient.
“Why do you think movies and fiction authors invent vampires, lottery winners and soulmates? I’ll tell you why: because watching someone brush their teeth, shop for sandwich meat and change the toilet paper is as mind-numbing for the observer as it is for the observed,” says Tig, after she lands a gig as a radio therapist.
Tig’s life is unraveling. She moved her mom into an Alzheimer’s unit after a grueling stretch of taking care of her at home. Tig’s handsome and fit boyfriend leaves for a sabbatical in Hawaii but not before dropping the bomb: He’s not sure if he’s into her. She quits her job as a therapist after telling off a patient. And shortly after her flighty older sister gives birth, she goes AWOL, leaving Tig to care for the colicky newborn along with the ailing mom.
The most stable and loving presence in her life is her Labradoodle, Margaret Thatcher.
Tig is not always the most likeable or lovable character. I was annoyed at times by the character’s endless joking — the way she makes light of horrible situations. But she’s coping, using humor as the last line of defense.
Having watched dementia steal my father’s brain while my mom struggled to keep him at home, I connected with Garvin’s spot-on descriptions of Alzheimer’s and the oddly soothing routines of a nursing home. The book also contains the single best description of a nap I’ve ever read.
That’s probably because Garvin gets it. She lives in Stoughton and is a professor of sports psychology at UW-Whitewater. She also commutes to New Hampshire to teach in an MFA writing program. She worked as a gerontology nurse and cared for her mother (a professor of gerontology). In the news release for the book she says, “I wrote this book to try and make sense of it all in the context of fairness, care giving, and family.”
On this and many levels, I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around succeeds. Buy it, read it, forgive yourself for your shortcomings. And then take a good nap.
Ann Garvin reads from I Like You Just Fine When You’re Not Around at Mystery to Me on Friday, June 24, at 7 p.m.
