Great Writing

 "Commitment" is a novel about improvisation. It's about sailing along in a mouse-infested boat, plugging holes with steel wool.

In the first scene, a family in the Palisades prepares to send one son to Berkeley. The mom (Diane) is a single mom; she has a nervous condition, so she can't handle the drive across California. She is entrusting her child to strangers. One stranger, in a casual way, says, "I don't know what you're thinking. I wouldn't miss this drive for the world." Within a few days, Diane will stop speaking, stop leaving her bed; she will have a full mental breakdown, and she will literally never recover; she will hang on in a semi-vegetative state, for years and years, until she dies.

In the wake of Diane's tragedy, the family bends some rules. It's probably illegal for the younger children not to enter the "care" of the state of California, but they remain in their house, and they find a surrogate mom in the form of Diane's nurse-colleague, Julie. The oldest son--Walter--begins collecting and restoring trashy bicycles on the Berkeley campus. He sends cash home in stamped envelopes. The middle child, Lina, has obvious talent, but it seems like no one has the time or energy to pay attention to her. She works the register at a local store. One of her teachers discovers this and becomes horrified, and essentially forces Lina to take a spot at Barnard. Lina understands that she should feel grateful, but actually, she is ambivalent.

It's easy to fall for these characters. I especially like Lina, who keeps imagining that her vacuous father will reenter the picture. (Mona Simpson doesn't judge the father, but she does underline his limitations.) Lina becomes an artist, eager for approval, which she never really gets. Sometimes, she can sort of grasp that "approval" doesn't matter--but it's hard to remember this all the time. I was also taken with the youngest child, Donnie, who becomes a drug addict, then tries to atone. Donnie lives with an older woman--who might or might not be "love interest material"--and his life feels weirdly suspenseful, just because of the narrator's depth of care and attention.

This is old-fashioned writing. It seems to be a tribute to Mona Simpson's friend, the novelist Michelle Huneven. Like Huneven, Simpson can persuade you that anything might happen, on any given page. Nothing feels schematic. That's a major achievement.