July 1 - "Mon Plaisir"

“Mon Plaisir”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* * (Okay) Realistic

A woman decides to start her life anew after a new, short haircut. Each small change leads to a larger change, but in the end her life isn’t all that different.

What saved this story (and isn’t that a terrible way to look at a story – “what saved the story”) was the scene near the end of the tale in which the woman and her husband were extras in the background of a movie scene. The dinner they shared in acted silence held the very thing – love – missing from their time together in the real world. It was a strongly written scene that played great on the page, complete with the breaks, and the reintroduction to sad reality, provided with each “cut” yelled from the director. But, a few quirky details and one strong scene do not a pleasurable story make.