Suite Scarlett, by Maureen Johnson
Johnson, Maureen (2008). Suite Scarlett. NY: Point. 368 pages.
I’m never really sure of the experience a new Maureen Johnson book with bring. While I genuinely liked her 2007 Girl at Sea, I thought that the 2005 Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes was kind of a stinker. I would have to say that Suite Scarlett falls somewhere in between. As with GAS and 13LBE, this novel has a kind of gimmicky premise (more on this in a minute), however, to the credit of the latest novel, Suite Scarlett’s gimmick was somewhat unconventionally realized.
Fifteen-year-old Scarlett Martin has grown up in the boutique and kitschy New York city hotel her parents own and manage. As far as hotels go, the Martin’s Hopewell is an acquired taste. With themed rooms and an air of faded beauty, the hotel is not the most popular destination. Each of the four Martin children is expected to aid in the upkeep of the hotel and, as the younger Martins age, it seems the hotel demands more and more devotion of each. When, on Scarlett’s fifteenth birthday, she is given her own suite in the hotel to manage (an “honor” that means she gets to provide concierge service to the suite’s guests), the new occupant of that suite, an aging actress known as Mrs. Amberson, both entertains Scarlett and interferes with the Martins’ lives.
This is one of few books I’ve read (both lately and in fairly recent history) that makes the struggling financial situation of the protagonist and the protagonist’s family a factor in the movement of the characters. In fact, many of the decisions made (and the repercussions of these same decisions) by the Martin children are in service of their family’s finances. I’m not saying that Suite Scarlett is any kind of “antidote” to privileged chick lit (not that this genre needs an antidote), but that this is a notable and somewhat realistic point to note.
That said, the novel is, as I said before, a little gimmicky. In fact, the whole thing is more of a light farce than the light romance it would seem at first to be. As soon as she makes her appearance, Mrs. Amberson proves to be the quirky, somewhat mysterious, meddling, well-intentioned, flighty, wealthy cog from which Scarlett and the secondary Martins will spin. The whole image of the rich-but-slumming Mrs. Amberson staying in the rapidly-falling-apart Hopewell followed around by Scarlett, her would-be lady-in-waiting who drags out the single Dior sheath loaned to her by her sister to visit semi high-society locales is a bit ridiculous. But it’s fun ridicule and doesn’t really pretend to be more than it is. Sure there are a few heavy moments and even a few romantic moments (most notably regarding the youngest Martin, a cancer survivor, who, remission status notwithstanding, is a real brat), but the real action centers around Mrs. Amberson, the Martin’s well-meaning fairy godmother.