Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You (review)

Senior year brings promise to affluent Quaker Heights High, but several seniors are still reeling from the death, likely suicide, of their charismatic and beloved friend, Tink. Merissa starts with perfection (early admission to Brown, cast as the lead in the school play) and then spirals down into withdrawal and self-destructive cutting after her father leaves for another woman. Eager, acceptance-hungry Nadia develops a crush on a teacher that leads to disaster when she gives him an anonymous birthday present of a painting she took from her family's guest room—a painting that's worth three million dollars. The girls' stories proceed sequentially, each largely standing alone, but Tink's death (and her possible ghostly appearance) is clearly an influence on both of them, illustrating the way such an event can be a catalyst for further tragedy. Both girls are also struggling to negotiate the high-expectation, high-pressure land of privileged youth and trying to please unappeasable and withholding fathers, territory that Oates limns with tenderness and clarity. Characterization of our two heroines is detailed and effective, with Nadia, the sweet, needy girl led into bad choices by her yearning, a particular standout. Merissa's story has much in common with Delia Ephron's The Girl with the Mermaid Hair (BCCB 2/10), also a perceptive chronicle of a teenage girl's renegotiation of her relationship with her father, and readers who enjoyed Ephron's work will find Oates' explorations rewarding.