Where’d You Go, Bernadatte by Maria Semple

Reviewed by Gerti

In contrast to another book I just read by Dominick Dunne which deals with the lives of the rich and famous in New York City long ago, Maria Semple here deals with the lives of the computer nouveau riche, including the title character Bernadette Fox. She is married to a genius from Microsoft, but is a bit of a genius herself, something we don’t realize until about halfway into the story. At the start, Bernadette is simply a Seattle mom who is tired of dealing with the other mommies at her daughter Bee’s very special grade school, and that makes her character very approachable from this reader’s point of view.  

Bernadette is eccentric, and so is the unconventional format that Semple uses to present the story. She takes e-mails, letters, conversations, memos, etc. to tell us the story of this family: the brilliant-but-largely-absent father, the trying-hard-but would-rather-be-doing-something-else mommy, and the stuck-in-the-middle daughter, who is just trying to keep everyone happy. Part of the problem is that mom has a formidable adversary at Galer Street School named Audrey Griffin. Audrey is the Fox family’s neighbor, and she is hosting an event for the school, but is fixated and upset by everything Bernadette does. Among her crimes, Audrey starts a rumor (untrue) that Bernadette drove over her foot in car line, then sneaks onto the Fox’s property in order to remove some blackberry plants which she feels will ruin the party she is hosting. As fate would have it, removing those blackberries vines during the rainy season in Seattle leads to a mudslide which fills Audrey’s house and scares any number of children and parents.  

But other things are going wrong in Bernadette’s life as well. She thinks she’s been out-sourcing tedious jobs to a woman named Manjula in India, but in truth she’s been having her personal information stolen, including passport info and credit cards. By the time her husband catches on, law enforcement is also involved, and it all makes Bernadette look like she’s completely lost her mind. During an intervention at home, Bernadette flies the coop, and the search is on. 

Throw in other issues like her husband, Elgin Branch, being seduced by his new administrative assistant (a divorced mother at the Galer school who is one of the “gnats” bothering Bernadette), and Bee’s wanting to go to Antarctica on vacation, and you’ve got a hell of a quirky tale. I love Bernadette as a character, and admire the resilience of her daughter, who never believes for a minute that her mother would leave and not want to be found by her. I hate the husband for a while (who doesn’t hate a man who cheats on his wife?) but the e-mails etc. make clear how little he is really to blame for what happens with Soo-Lin. 

The final scenes will have you cheering as MacArthur prize-winning architect Bernadette gets her groove back building with limited resources in the frozen wasteland, and reuniting with her family. Strongly recommended roller-coaster of a tale that will have you laughing, crying and commiserating at every turn.