A young woman wakes up in bed with a man she has loved since they were teenagers. It is the morning after the wedding. He was the groom, but she was not the bride. So begins Walking on Trampolines by Frances Whiting. This sounded like the beginning of exactly the kind of book that would hold no interest for me. I don't typically like "chick lit", or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I don't like typical chick lit and I really thought that was what this was going to be, two women fighting over some guy that was likely going to turn out to not be worth it. I am so, SO glad I did not give up and toss it aside. I have no problem not finishing a book I am not enjoying, but I feel like I owe it a decent effort and this time that effort was well rewarded.
Tallulah is that young woman and, to her credit, she knows she has made the biggest mistake of her life. The narrative moves around in time and we are allowed to see all the events that led up to this mistake alongside the way she is dealing with it. Tallulah, or Lulu as most people call her, had a best friend named Annabelle who came from a family of famous artists. When Annabelle moves to town, she immediately latches on to Lulu and they become fast friends, even inventing new words together (bordinary: something that is both boring and ordinary; tediocre: both tedious and mediocre; varf: vomit and barf...you get the idea). As they reach adulthood, their relationship falls apart, then back together, apart and together. When I started this book, I thought the whole thing was going to be about Lulu and Annabelle and I was disappointed with the flatness of the story, but as I kept reading, it deepened and deepened, introducing character after character that made the book so much better.
First there were Lulu's parents, whom she addresses as Harry and Rose. Harry is a wonderful father and husband who has cared for his family and always stood by Rose as she has struggled with mental illness all her life. Then we meet Lulu's other life-long friends, Simone and Stella who couldn't be more different from one another and yet are permanently bonded. We meet Annabelle's parents, Frank and Annie. You can't help but adore Frank; and Annie, while deeply flawed, is better than we initially realize. And perhaps my favorite character in the book is Duncan, Lulu's boss. He is terrible and wonderful all in the same breath. Their friendship is probably the very best part of this book. One of my favorite things about reading, actually my very favorite thing, is all the wonderful people I meet in the pages of books. I come to love complete strangers as if they were family and true friends. Duncan is one of these. I am so glad we met.
This book made me laugh and laugh, and it also made me cry. Just looking back at several of the sections that I marked make me start to cry all over again. I loved the word combinations that Lulu and Annabelle created. I loved the richness of the each of the characters. At the end of the book there is an interview with the author and in it she says that she worried that the story, set in Australia, might not translate well to American audiences. And then she says this:
But I came really quickly to the conclusion that its themes are universal, the agony and ecstasy of first love, the intensity of female friendships, the awkwardness of the teen years, the stigma of mental illness, the family ties that bind, the way laughter can dissipate our fears. I think everyone knows of these things and feelings, no matter what side of the globe we live on.
That is exactly what I loved about this book. This is one I will be rereading. I hope you'll read it as well. This would be an excellent book club choice for all the many discussions it is certain to spark. And I'd love to discuss it with you.
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