This One Is Mine

by Maria Semple

  A flock of birds, big ones, swooped down Beverly Drive and, in a glorious watery movement, alighted on the cheesy Santa sleigh that spanned Wilshire Boulevard. David knew from their silhouettes that the birds were Amazon parrots, giant and Christmas colored. He had never seen them before, but there was much lore surrounding this flock of LA parrots. Some believed them to have escaped from the set of Doctor Dolittle in the sixties. Here they were now, shimmering red and green in the tinsel under the harsh December sun. Marvelous!

  The phone rang. “This is David Parry.”

  It was the ambulance driver. Teddy Reyes was nowhere to be found. David got his friend with the sprained ankle on the phone. She was as surprised as anyone. When nobody was looking, Teddy Reyes had unhooked the IVs, gotten dressed, and walked out of the hospital. The only trace of him was a note on the bed. It read “Went to pick up a friend at the airport.”

  TEDDY

  I GIVE YOU THIS GIFT. COME CLOSER. ALL I HAVE TO GIVE IS THIS, AND I GIVE it to you.

  I’m a know-nothing, my ignorance is immense. (You would call me a philistine.)

  I’m a jailed crazy, a sobbing drunk in the garden, a diseased pirate, the scorpion king of Venice. Still you come, basket in hand, to collect more of my booty.

  Come closer. . . .

  I gave until you lit up the night sky. I took until you were a madwoman wandering the canyons.

  Oh, how your basket trembles for my gifts.

  Shall I fill it with my sick roses and counterfeit coins, my long nights, my sweet heart, and the birdsong of my brilliant parrots circling overhead cawing your name?

  Look at your displeasure! How you hate to wait, plump, spoiled, bejeweled queen of the glass castle. I apologize.

  I won’t make you wait any longer, darling, dear, sweet-smelling co-conspirator of mine. Here is my gift.

  Come closer. . . .

  I am gone.

  Don’t be angry. Since that first too-hot morning, I am your laughing puppet, your dance floor caddy, and my heart leaps only for you.

  Soon, you will wake up from a well-deserved afternoon nap. For one moment, you experience that wonder of not knowing who you are or where you are, or if it’s day or night. You could be, and are, anyone.

  Then: the lake out the window, the newspaper beside you on the bed, the glasses in your hand, your daughter’s laughter swirling up up up through the pines.

  And you remember, I am Violet Parry.

  But this time: you rejoice. Throw your basket in the air! Know I am by your side. See, I am branded, my arm forever abloom in your name.

  I know you’re scared, so am I.

  I have stumbled enough. I am forgiven. I am abundant. I am certainly insouciant. I’m not your tar baby. You’re the star, baby. Love the lucky well.

  About the Author

  MARIA SEMPLE wrote for television shows

  including Arrested Development, Mad About You,

  and Ellen. She has escaped from Los Angeles

  and lives with her family on an island off

  Seattle. This is her first novel.

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  THIS ONE IS MINE

  A Novel by

  MARIA SEMPLE

  A CONVERSATION WITH THE AUTHOR OF

  THIS ONE IS MINE

  This One Is Mine is your first novel. What was your path to becoming a writer?

  My father created the sixties TV series Batman and went on to write a bunch of movies. When you’re a kid, and your dad’s job consists of walking around the house in socks all day, then having barbecues with Archie Bunker, Major Anthony Nelson, and Sebastian Howell III, you decide, I want that job.

  I was an English major at Barnard. I could have happily spent my life as an English major—reading books, writing papers, maybe teaching, eventually writing a novel—but I wrote a spec screenplay that sold to Fox (and never got made). It was the late eighties, when basically anyone could get a development deal. The stuff I wrote was terrible. I was too young.

  Around that time, I met Darren Star, and he gave me my first TV job, on Beverly Hills, 90210. That led to about fifteen years of TV writing. I was good enough at it, but I secretly knew it was too hard. Not old-fashioned-hard-work hard, but sweaty-something’s-wrong-here hard. For the life of me, I couldn’t come up with sitcomy joke-jokes, which mainly consist of a person walking into a friend’s house without knocking, insulting them, then helping himself to a bottle of water from the fridge. If, in real life, I was even once on the receiving end of such behavior, I’d probably burst into tears.

  The last show I worked on was Arrested Development—a brilliant show I’m humbled and a little embarrassed to have my name on because it’s all Mitch Hurwitz. (Mitch, if you’re reading this, BIG KISS.) After that, I thought, hey, I’m going to try writing that novel.

  How was writing a novel different from writing for television?

  Television is collaborative. I was in a room with ten fabulously talented writers, all working together, with an infernal machine bearing down on us. We answered to actors and network executives. Plus, we were sleep-deprived, behind schedule, and lucky to pull it all together for show night. Multiply that by twenty-two episodes, add a couple of pant sizes, and you get a year in the life of a TV writer.

  Writing This One Is Mine, I was very much alone. I wrote it with no agent, no publisher, no deadline, no concept that it would make the least bit of sense, let alone get published.

  But, really, the biggest and scariest difference is that in TV, if the work wasn’t great, I could always blame someone else. With my novel, it feels like I’m handing out something and saying, “Here’s the best I can do.”

  Where did you get your inspiration for this book?

  When I decided to write a novel, I had just finished rereading The House of Mirth and was in the middle of rereading Anna Karenina. I realized my favorite kind of story involves strong, singular women who set out to destroy themselves. Especially if the women are living in fancy houses, have lots of help, and commit adultery. Sorry, but I just love that. I decided simply to write what I liked to read. So I cobbled together a story.

  Tell us about the title.

  This One Is Mine comes from the poem in the front of book by the Sufipoet Hafiz. I love it because it’s deeply passionate. Yet at the same time, it’s impersonal and a little frantic, like, “You—you over there! I don’t even know your name, but you’re mine!” It fits with the theme of the book, in that at the beginning every character confuses love with possession. David sees Violet as his wife. Vio -let tries to buy Teddy’s love and is wildly jealous of Coco. Sally feels as though she has more right to David than Violet. During the course of the story, all that changes.

  How did you approach writing these decidedly flawed characters?

  When I was writing the book, I’d ask myself, “If I was reading this in bed, what would keep me from turning off the light?” Which is asking a lot because, man, I love to sleep. So I made sure my characters threw themselves headlong into their pursuits. You might not sympathize with Violet risking a life of luxury, and even her child, for a shifty dirtbag like Teddy, but hopefully it’s compelling reading. And if I’ve deprived my reader of precious sleep, I consider my job well done.

  Do you see yourself in any of your characters? Which ones were the easiest or most difficult to write?

  I knew the basic story I wanted to tell—woman having an affair; sister-in-law envying her. Constructing the characters, I tapped into aspects of myself and greatly exaggerated them. For Violet, it was the deadening effect of too much time in L.A. For Sally, it was self-will born out of anxiety. At the risk of being an author who claims my characters “wrote themselves,” I will say that if you have your characters want something really badly, it makes life a lot easier.

  What are you working on next?

  Another novel. My big idea is for it to be fast-paced, surprising, psychologically astute, gorgeously written, and deeply, deeply moving. Pray for me.


  QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

  1. Why do you think Violet is drawn to Teddy? What makes her risk “losing everything,” as David puts it?

  2. How does the novel’s title, This One Is Mine, relate to the story? The book’s epigraph opens with the image of a slave block. Are any of the characters in the book “enslaved” in a way?

  3. In the first chapter, David is upset with Violet for what he perceives to be her lack of interest in maintaining the household. Is his anger justified?

  4. What does Violet find sad about Los Angeles? Where do you think this sadness stems from?

  5. What do you think about Sally’s friendship with Maryam? Why does Maryam put up with her?

  6. Los Angeles could be said to be a city of ambition. How do the characters’ ambitions relate to one another’s? What fuels those ambitions, and when do they get out of control?

  7. In some ways, Sally seems to want everything that Violet has: a successful husband, financial security, a nice house, and stylish friends. Do you think Sally would be happy if she suddenly had everything she wanted? What similarities to you see in Sally and Violet?

  8. Do you see any similarities between David and Jeremy?

  9. Teddy seems to have a set of problems that make Violet’s (and everyone else’s) pale in comparison. Do you think Violet is drawn to him because of or in spite of these traits?

  10. What do you make of Sally and Jeremy’s relationship? Do you think there is a way that it could ever have worked out?

  11. Why is Violet happy when Sally tells her that she never really liked her?

  12. In many ways, this is a very “L.A.” story. To what extent do you think the characters’ attitudes and actions are shaped by Los Angeles? Could you see this story taking place anywhere else?

  13. At the end of the book, Violet, Sally, and David all visit Teddy in the hospital. In what ways did Teddy’s arrival in their lives bring them all together? How might this story have turned out differently if Violet had never met Teddy at the health fair?

  14. In Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Anna is miserable in a loveless marriage and recklessly succumbs to her desire for the dashing Vronsky. What similarities do you see between Tolstoy’s novel and This One Is Mine?

  15. What other books did This One Is Mine remind you of? What was similar or different about them?

  BOOKS I LOVE: A LIST COMPILED BY MARIA SEMPLE

  Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow

  The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

  Ablutions by Patrick deWitt

  Middlemarch by George Elliot

  All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison

  The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford

  The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

  Headlong by Michael Frayn

  The Art of Fiction by John Gardner

  On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner

  What I’d Say to the Martians by Jack Handey

  The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

  English Passengers by Matthew Kneale

  When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale

  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

  Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

  True Grit by Charles Portis

  American Pastoral by Philip Roth

  Operation Shylock by Philip Roth

  Last Night by James Salter

  Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

  Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

  The Travelling Hornplayer by Barbara Trapido

  I’m Losing You by Bruce Wagner

  The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

  EXUBERANT PRAISE FOR MARIA SEMPLE’S

  THIS ONE IS MINE

  “Maria Semple’s remarkable first novel isn’t just a witty, sharp-edged satire about adultery, social climbing, and the absurdities of L.A. On a deeper level, This One Is Mine is a complex, unexpectedly moving story about the risks and rewards of love, in all its irrational glory.”

  — Tom Perrotta, author of Election and Little Children

  “With Joan Didion’s eye for the bleak, Nathanael West’s ear for the desperate, and her own taste for the comic, Maria Semple has penned a scathing vision of show business in a repellent La-La Land…. Unlike some former television writers who turn to novels, Semple employs none of the cheap tricks of her previous trade. This is not a made-for-TV movie and it doesn’t end like one. People pay for their mistakes, as we do in life, and some of them learn lessons—understanding, forgiveness, gratitude—and live on with their scars.”

  — Mark Lindquist, Seattle Times

  “Semple has a wholly original voice and deftly infuses humor into This One Is Mine (you’ll laugh out loud at the sayings on the nanny’s secondhand tee-shirts) while capturing the bittersweet moments of motherhood and a marriage teetering on the edge. The result is a novel that is both entertaining and unexpected—a little bit like L.A. itself.”

  — Amy Scribner, BookPage

  “Once I started this book, I couldn’t put it down. It is funny, carefully observed, beautifully written, very knowing, and in general a real treat. Stop wondering which book to buy. Buy this one.”

  — Merrill Markoe, author of Walking in Circles Before Lying Down

  “Los Angeles never looked so rich or so poor as it does in This One Is Mine. This funny-tender send-up of the City of Angels is marked by whip-smart dialogue, skillful plot twists, and gimlet-eyed observations…. This One Is Mine is all about what money cannot buy. All the main characters learn to give more of themselves than they ever thought they were capable of. This sassy and smart chronicle of greed yields generosity in the end.”

  — Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Kansas City Star

  “Semple, a former television producer and writer, brings a fresh eye to a milieu she clearly knows well…. She has a deft touch when it comes to choreographing chaos. The wedding is a memo-rably funny disaster. This One Is Mine is a delight.”

  — Diane White, Boston Globe

  “While This One Is Mine dwells in that rarefied yet inevitably unhappy realm of the super-rich, Semple does not feel obligated to provide an infuriating catalog of designer clothing, shoes, and appliances. For this alone, she may be worthy of canonization…. Semple deftly portrays the deleterious effect an unnegotiated workload arrangement—because he is the breadwinner, David expects Violet to take care of everything on the home front—can have. She also beautifully renders the twists and turns an overburdened heart can take…. Indeed, Semple’s greatest strength is the courage to stock her book with characters who are, upon first glance, largely unsympathetic and then gently peel them until they become recognizably and even endearingly human. Truth, of all variety, triumphs here. This One Is Mine is refreshingly clear-eyed about its characters and subjects, and in an excellent twist, David becomes the most interesting and sympathetic character in the book. It is his journey, oddly, that makes This One Is Mine worth reading.”

  — Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times

  “Maria Semple writes like a cross between Dorothy Parker and Nathanael West. This One Is Mine is an uncompromising and trenchantly funny portrait of Los Angeles life that rings uncomfortably true.”

  — Darren Star, creator of Sex and the City

  “A smart and funny debut…. Semple’s takes are tack sharp as her delightful cast is driven comically and tragically ever deeper into a culture of artifice. Semple obviously knows her turf, and she does an exquisite job of stomping all over it.”

  — Publishers Weekly

  “Maria Semple delves unafraid, with a sharp eye and sharper hand, into the big issues: Love, Happiness, Life, and Death, and emerges with a Los Angeles we never knew, but always suspected. A triumphant debut.”

  — Gigi Levangie Grazer, author of The Starter Wife

  “This delightful novel gives pleasure on every page. Deftly satiric, wickedly hilarious, brilliantly plotted to ensure maximum mayhem, it also sustains a sweet, triumphant tenderness toward characters who act so appallingly. If at
first it seems a puzzle that the novelist can inspire such rueful yet endearing affection for these too-often greedy, shallow people, the answer is that we come to recognize them—as us.”

  —Phillip Lopate, author of The Art of the Personal Essay

  “Though they’re shallow, condescending, desperate, and solipsistic, Ms. Semple loves her characters wholeheartedly…. What is surprising is that the reader cares at all for these hapless creatures, and that, in our era of schadenfreude as a public sport, the novel’s mostly happy ending is… deeply satisfying.”

  — Meredith Bryan, New York Observer

  “Maria Semple begins like a roller coaster, clacking up slowly and ominously and then, hold on! You are plunging into the great dreamworld of L.A. money and ambition where nothing is quite real until it breaks apart and suddenly there is the terrible bottom and end of it all. This is a love story with real thorns and a heroine you will weep for.”

  — James Salter, author of Light Years and Last Night

  “A fresh, flamboyantly witty new voice.”

  — Helen Fielding, author of Bridget Jones’s Diary

  “This One Is Mine, remarkably, manages to combine comedy and compassion. Its characters are flawed and self-absorbed, but they’re doing their best, and Semple doesn’t give us the easy out of feeling superior. Even more remarkable, the novel hums with suspense. It’s built into the cliffhanger scene endings, and it’s also there on a larger level: this isn’t one of those novels in which it’s clear what (or whom) the heroines ought to choose…. Each turn of the plot brings new surprises, and the result is a novel that leaves a more lasting impression than its satirical side would suggest.”