"My Hollywood": Not the One You Expect

I read and very much liked Mona Simpson’s first novel “Anywhere But Here” when it was published in 1992; I also read the (sort of) “sequel,” “The Lost Father,” published in 1993. Simpson published another novel and a novella, then took ten years to write “My Hollywood” (Knopf, 2010). I was pleased to hear of the new novel, and started reading it a couple of months ago, but was initially put off by the way the Filipina main character’s accent and grammar in English were portrayed, feeling it might be demeaning; I stopped reading. However, as someone who has studied linguistics, I know that there is a reason and value to portray dialects as they are spoken. Linguists now believe that all dialects are equally legitimate, and that “standard” dialects should not be privileged over others; the varieties of English, for example, are now called “World Englishes.” So portraying dialects accurately is fine, as long as doing so is not used to “other” or demean the characters. I am glad I then went back to the novel and read it, as I soon saw that the Filipina middle-aged main character, Lola, is written (and not in a patronizing way) as a strong, wise, independent, compassionate woman. She has, like so many women around the world, left her own children back home in order to become a nanny in the United States and make money to send home to her family. Lola has used her wages to put her five children through college, including one daughter who graduates as a medical doctor. But although she misses her family, being a nanny is not just a job for Lola; she develops close and loving connections with her small charges. The other characters in this story are also nannies as well as their employers and children. The setting (except for a brief interlude in the Philippines) is Santa Monica, California, and the surrounding areas of Los Angeles. Any expectation raised by the title that the novel will be about the Hollywood of the movie business will be disappointed, as it has only a peripheral role in the narrative; the “My Hollywood” of the title is the quotidian reverse side of the glamorous image. Lola’s employers are, at various times, Claire and Paul, Helen and Jeff, and Judith. Two of the female employers struggle with balancing their careers and taking care of their children; even with nannies, they feel stretched thin, while also feeling guilty about nannies’ raising their children. Their marriages, too, are strained. Claire in particular is often angry, although usually quietly, about the fact that Paul seems to assume his career as a TV writer is more important than hers as a composer, is almost never home himself, and assumes she is always available for domestic work, as her work is not on a set schedule and doesn’t make much money. Claire and Lola become close, and Lola is devoted to Claire’s and Paul’s small son William. But at a certain point, money and other issues intervene and there is a break in the relationship; money is a continuing issue throughout the lives of the characters, both the employers and the employees. Sometimes the novel feels claustrophobic, because it is focused so closely on the world of homes and children, with its settings of houses, yards, pools, parks, playgrounds, and preschools. But this is, I am sure, purposeful on the author’s part, as she wants to illuminate a not often closely examined world, a whole universe operating under the radar. She reveals the never-ending work, the dailyness, the frequent tedium of childcare and housework, whether it is done by mothers or nannies (only rarely by fathers) or both, as well as the joys of seeing children grow and develop. Only occasionally is the routine punctuated by a dramatic event (e.g., a near-drowning of one child; the rescue of a Thai domestic being kept as a near-slave; two nannies’ weddings at different times; one nanny’s return to the Philippines; the firing -- “chopping,” as Lola puts it -- of more than one nanny; professional successes and failures of the employers). The novel is beautifully written, scrupulously observed, and well worth reading.