Synopses & Reviews
From the bestselling author of
Jane Austen in Boca, “another witty tale that combines classic literature with contemporary social comedy.”---
Hartford Courant
Carla Goodmans life in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, is a little bit stressful these days. Her doctor husband is frazzled, her sons teachers say he needs Ritalin, and shes in the throes of planning her daughters bat mitzvah. But its her sweet widowed mother, Jessie Kaplan, who really has Carla worried, for Jessie has suddenly “remembered” that she was Shakespeares Dark Lady of the Sonnets in a previous life. Can even the famed Dr. Leonard Samuels, psychiatrist and author of the self-help book, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love My Mother-in-Law, help with a problem like this?
Witty, engaging, and wickedly observant, Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan is an unpredictable tale of love, loss, and family rites of passage.
Review
“Though Cohens knack for gentle satire earns some terrific laughs, this buoyant novels power stems from the authors deep sympathy for her conventional characters. She mocks, yes, but from a place of tremendous understanding.”
---Newsday
About the Author
Paula Marantz Cohen is a Distinguished Professor of English at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and the author of
Jane Austen in Boca as well as five scholarly nonfiction books
. She lives in Moorestown, New Jersey.
Reading Group Guide
1. How do you view Jessie Kaplans ideas about her past life? In what ways are they creative and/or therapeutic for herself and for her family? Does it bother you that her ideas are never fully explained?
2. How is Carlas reaction to her mothers behavior at once logical, loving, and selfish? How do you view her handling of her daughter? Discuss the stresses of Carlas position as she struggles to do the best for her family.
3. How do Margot and her mother resemble and differ from each other? How does Margot reflect the gains that feminism has made possible for women as well as some of the losses that accompany those gains?
4. Discuss the different views of religion held by Carla and Mark. What do these differing views reveal about the temperament and nature of these two individuals?
5. Discuss Stephanies initial response to her Torah reading and then look at her final Dvar Torah. In what way does her response reflect a synthesis of Carla and Marks views of religion?
6. The gap between appearance and reality is a major theme in Shakespeares work. Discuss what it means to look below the surface of things and how this theme functions in the novel.
7. Discuss the idea of interpretation (the theme of Stephanies Dvar Torah)—as it relates to Jessies notions of her past life, as it relates to Hals role as a teacher and critic, and as it relates to Margots abilities as a lawyer and as a woman seeking a soul mate?
8. Discuss the methods of Dr. Samuels. Is he a good therapist, in your opinion? Would you like to consult him? Why or why not?
9. Discuss the statement made by Mr. OHare: “Im sure we go to the same place…only the scenery is different, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. God doesnt want to go to the same goddamn play every night.” How does this statement relate to the lives of the characters in the novel? To your own life and beliefs?