Consider yourself kissed — and hugged and understood — by Jessica Stanley's smart, oh-so-relatable tale of a woman who seems to have assembled all the pieces of a happy life but feels like she's lost herself in the process.
What sets Consider Yourself Kissed apart from other novels about overwhelmed mothers who feel stretched to the limit and are disappointed by their partner's level of engagement is the way it braids its utterly sympathetic heroine's domestic drama with the concurrent rollercoaster of British politics and cataclysmic global events. In other words, it's a reminder that our life and our times are intrinsically connected.
The novel begins in 2022 with an attention-grabbing dark scene before scrolling back nine years to tell the story of how Coralie Bower landed in such a despairing state.
When we meet 29-year-old Coralie on a frigid Sunday in March 2013, it's been six months since she was transferred to the London branch of her Australian advertising agency after taking the fallout from her Sydney boss' inappropriate behavior toward her. She's lonely and cold, but forces herself out of her miserable flat for a latte. Knowing no one outside of work, she feels invisible.
Minutes later, she's even colder and up to her waist in the Victoria Park lake. Without a second thought, she has jumped into the duck pond to rescue a small girl who, enchanted by the ducklings, has tumbled face down into the water. The girl's father comes rushing out of a nearby café, but by the time he tries to thank Coralie, she has "squelched" off, shivering.
How's that for a meet cute? It gets even cuter. Stanley wastes no time pairing her two protagonists. Minutes into their first real conversation after the girl's father tracks her down, they're joking about his height (half an inch above average for a Brit, he insists) and his resemblance to Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy. They learn that they were both sent to boarding schools far from home at age 11, cuddling plush toys for comfort.
At 37, Adam Whiteman is an up-and-coming political journalist and commentator. Coralie is pleased that he's familiar with Canberra — where she went to school and university — from having reported on a former Australian Labor leader. He and his ex-wife share custody of their 5-year-old daughter, Zora.
Stanley quietly plants signposts about where this story might be headed. For starters, there's the fact that Adam, although he's an adoring father, was not paying attention when Zora wandered out of sight and fell into the duck pond. So perhaps Coralie shouldn't be so surprised when he's later distracted from the relentless exigencies of childcare by his all-consuming work.
Beginning with its title, which comes from an epistolary sign-off in Mary McCarthy's The Group, Consider Yourself Kissed is well-stocked with literary references. Pride and Prejudice, of course, follows a winding road to happily ever after, whereas Coralie and Adam encounter twists and turns after they get together. Then there's the book with which Coralie props open her apartment door for Adam's first visit: Elizabeth Jane Howard's The Long View, a portrait of a married couple's shifting relationship that moves backward in time, from 1950 to 1926.
Consider Yourself Kissed spans Coralie's 30s, the high points of which include halcyon early days with Adam, her easy closeness with Zora, and two hard-won babies. Their family circle includes a range of distinctive characters presented with wit: Tory Tom, Zora's Conservative stepfather; the GGs, short for gay grannies — Adam's sharp-tongued mother and her gentler partner; and Coralie's nasty father, a military man who still terrorizes Coralie and her sensitive younger brother.
Coralie's march toward her 40th birthday coincides with a ridiculously tumultuous period in British politics that encompasses Brexit, COVID, and a revolving door of prime ministers. All of this is unsettling for Coralie, who comes to resent Adam's total immersion in each successive election and ensuing book contract, particularly during lockdown when school is suspended.
American readers may care even less about the vicissitudes of various Labour Party leaders than Coralie does. But fortunately, her Australian outsider take is often amusing, filled with tart observations about the "malignant show-offs" constantly in the news. She relays, secondhand, a snob's priceless description of a certain "insufferable Tory" as a "poor person's idea of a rich person," and of Boris Johnson, "a thick person's idea of a clever one."
Stanley's novel is rich, and her cleverness irrefutable.
Heller McAlpin has been reviewing books for NPR since 2009.
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