I don’t care what you say about Elizabeth Gilbert. I loved “Eat, Pray, Love” and I don’t care who knows it. That’s why, when I read this recent New York Times book review of Claire Dederer’s “Poser” (just out from FSG) and Janet Maslin not only likens Dederer’s style and humor to Gilbert, but speculates that “Poser” may indeed be the next bestseller in the style of “Eat, Pray, Love,” I had to mention it here. And it’s the yoga version, too.
The basic Gilbert-Dederer parallels, a la Maslin:
“Claire Dederer take[s] up yoga . . . because she lived in Seattle, “where rain was the sky’s lingua franca.” She felt bogged down at 31. She was married, had a young child and spent her time with other mothers, all of whom aspired to such oppressive virtue that the fear of child-rearing errors carried a whiff of existential gloom. . . She needed an escape. And yoga came with Seattle’s hip, holier-than-thou territory.”
Sound familiar? More or less. Maslin writes that Dederer’s book is part memoir, part how-to yoga manual. The best part is that Dederer sounds funny in the way she observes her journey of self-transformation, however bumpy and partial. If she is anything like Gilbert, I’m there.
Last minute Christmas gift perhaps?