Trudy Mixer, the novel’s heroine, is spunky, intelligent and unconditionally in love with the Beatles. Hood’s new book is written in the plain and honest voice of what could believably be a sixth grader from the ‘60s. But, just as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s love and heartbreak are these days central to any discussion of the epic Frankenstein, so too I believe are Hood’s beautiful highs and crashing lows important when assessing her most recent work. Surely, a review for this novel can, and will, exist independently of the events in Ann Hood’s life that have transpired and shaped her. This perhaps is a roundabout but essential introduction to discussing Hood’s new book, She Loves You Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Despite her many successes in the 12 years since that tragedy, the archival article stood as a testament to how much Hood had had to overcome in order to keep her life moving.
The trouble is made even more difficult by the fact that Hood herself had loved the Beatles as a young girl, and the overlapping memories and emotions that every chord, every album cover causes the grieving mother are nothing short of crushing. In her writing, Hood meaningfully communicates the pain caused by reminders of her daughter through the things that her daughter had loved (in this case music – the Beatles, no less). Hood’s daughter had died from a horrendously unpredictable medical emergency – the young girl, Grace, was only 5.
Still, truly, it was an article about love, but instead of love found this was a love lost, and lost heart-wrenchingly early. Written by Hood herself, from 2006, this time the story was about heartbreak. Their connection, in the “late afternoon” of life (Ruhlman’s words), was a story so tender that it twisted every romantic fiber in my being until tears dropped out of my eyeballs. Thirty lived-apart years later and they were now a formal union. A friend of Hood and fellow novelist Laura Lippman officiated their 2017 marriage ceremony, describing it as “an occasion of years lived and miles spanned, only to circle back to that path in Vermont where a man called a woman’s name and she turned and responded to his greeting.” That reference, from the first sweet but fleeting interaction the pair had, happened in 1988 the man of course was Michael, the woman Ann. The story was that of Ann Hood and Michael Ruhlman two authors, recently divorced, both wholly certain that they had met their platonic other half by finding each other. The first was out of delight – and, I’ll admit, because I’m a softie.
Though penned by different writers, they both had the same protagonist. Last month, on a quiet Monday night, I read two New York Times articles back-to-back. 2023 Bartending Awards are now accepting nominations.
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