If you’re looking for your next Alameda summer beach read, look no further than Lucky, Lucky People: A comedy of bad manners by local author Holly Larsen. Fast page turner? People making morally grey and comedically bad life choices? Theatrically absurd, dark-humored climax? Escapism? Set in Alameda? Check, check, check, check, and check.
It turns out the lucky, lucky people are lucky in part because they do live in Alameda, that “long, leafy island stretched out in the San Francisco Bay,” where historic trees are “practically worshipped” and where the first character we meet lives in a Queen Anne Victorian-era home next to a fictionalized version of Franklin Park.
The novel’s motley cast lead interconnected lives. There’s tennis instructor, mom of teens, and wannabe cougar, Shari, who lives in the Gold Coast. She’s lusting after Phil, a recent college graduate, neighbor, and former tennis student: “When had he morphed from that string-bean neighbor kid, a so-so player she had never much noticed, into this hunk?”
Phil doesn’t have much going for him except for his gorgeous looks, which serve him well at the Park Street coffee shop where he’s taken temporary work while he tries to figure out what to do with his life; Alameda moms love dropping in to order from him. Also, he’s dating fellow recent college graduate and blonde babe Jillian, a go-getter intern at a San Francisco marketing company who’s conniving to parlay her hunky boyfriend into someone more ambitious like herself: “It was his over-the-top movie star face that made it hard to walk away. Even though he was headed straight toward Loserville. Ergo, it was up to her to insist that he make something of his life.”
Then there’s Shari’s philandering husband, Gary, an executive at a San Francisco supply chain logistics company. While he appreciates his comfortable suburban life, he longs for some spice, so he’s hot after Eva, the attractive, 30-something accounting consultant who lives in a crumbling Victorian on Buena Vista Avenue. Eva is determined to create a more successful life than her immigrant parents. She prides herself on the home she bought: “A house like that could wipe out her parents’ embarrassing accents, the terrible jobs they had been forced to accept, and the weird food they’d bought at disgusting grocery outlets.” Still, her penny-pinching upbringing stymies her from spending the money needed to renovate. That’s partly why she’s dating Steve, a contractor living in what sounds like the Jingletown district of Oakland.
And while Steve’s talents lie in construction, he’s also a wannabe artist living in a loft as he secretly lusts after the loft community’s hot artist chicks: “…they were something. Unusual in their looks, crazy in their minds. Though he was, he suspected, as ordinary as Eva, he hated to give up the notion of someday being an artist. Or the boyfriend of an artist, at the very least.”
Finally, there’s sweet Annie, the only truly morally upright character, who dresses in retro outfits, no doubt gleaned from Alameda’s numerous vintage clothing sources. Like Phil, she’s a barista, one who loves crafting delicious coffees for her loyal customers. Unfortunately, her fiancé Daniel, a local nurse, is pressuring her to parlay her college degree into a lab career so they can save for an Alameda home—a dream requiring at least two professional incomes: “She knew that every day she worked at the café was a day that put Daniel’s dream on hold—a dream he maintained that they couldn’t fulfill without both of them holding down grown-up jobs.’
The novel is a “rom-com square-dance,” as Larsen puts it, with the four couples weaving in and out of a shifting web of attraction, disappointment, and second chances. In the end, their lives fatefully collide at that most quintessential of Alameda events, the family-friendly community fair.
Considering how well Larsen braids these eight stories together, it is remarkable that she didn’t plot them in advance. As she revealed in her Alameda Post interview with Gene Kahane, “I sit around and wonder what will happen next. …the single time circumstance forced me to plot, I found writing the story excruciating because I absolutely knew what would happen next. Where’s the fun in that?”
Larsen’s ensemble structure gives the novel its energy. As the characters’ lives intersect, one person’s private crisis becomes another person’s complication. Larsen gradually reveals the gap between how her characters see themselves and how others experience them, finding comedy in self-deception while remaining attentive to the loneliness and insecurity beneath it.
The novel’s strength lies in its recognition that people can be ridiculous and sympathetic at the same time. Larsen’s characters make selfish choices, misunderstand one another, and pursue happiness in ways that often create unhappiness for those around them. Yet the novel treats these failings with wit, inviting the reader to laugh rather than cry at moral failings.
Alameda is more than a backdrop. Its parks, neighborhoods, cafés, and island geography give the story a familiar and distinctive sense of place. At the same time, this is an Alameda unlike any most of us have experienced, filled with manipulative, self-centered characters engaged in racy misadventures. They appear fortunate from the outside but remain convinced that fulfillment lies just beyond their reach.
That tension gives the title its resonance. Who, exactly, are the lucky people? Those with stable marriages? Creative freedom? Financial security? New love? Or simply the chance to recognize what matters before it’s too late?
Lucky, Lucky People suggests that good fortune may have less to do with getting everything one wants than with surviving disappointment, accepting imperfection, and remaining open to change. As in life, some characters evolve, becoming better people and moving toward lasting happiness; some learn partial lessons and stumble onward; and others learn nothing, suffering unexpected consequences or continuing to lead a careless life likely to cause more harm.
Funny, observant, and compassionate toward human weakness, the novel is an engaging portrait of people discovering that starting over can be messy, embarrassing, and painful—but also unexpectedly hopeful.
Meet the author
Join the author, Holly Larsen, on Thursday, July 16, 6:30 p.m., at Books Inc., 1344 Park Street, where she will sign copies of her books, and her husband will join her to read from her latest novel.
Contributing writer Karin K. Jensen covers City Council, Planning Board, and book reviews for the Alameda Post and is a local author of The Strength of Water, An Asian American Coming-of-Age Memoir. Her writing is collected at https://linktr.ee/karinkjensen and https://alamedapost.com/Karin-K-Jensen. Contact her via [email protected].
