THE ROAD HOME

A woman navigates a career and romantic life in New York after Sept. 11.

Stephanie Willis is a solutions engineer for media companies. The novel opens with the mournful image of her buying a New York City snow globe “with the World Trade Center still part of the skyline.” Her life feels stagnant but is slowly shifting. She successfully moves into a male-dominated career and earns a promotion. Yet her workplace feels suffocating, and she endures one toxic boss after another. Her new boss invites her to a strip club and ogles her incessantly. The scenes of workplace misogyny and gross displays of power are juxtaposed with Stephanie at her Brooklyn apartment, stationed behind the glowing light of her television watching old movies on her VCR. But the characters take active roles in her life. Stephanie talks to them, and they, in turn, offer constant commentary on her life and decisions. What’s more, their storylines obliquely parallel Stephanie’s. Working Girl(1988) echoes the novel’s setting in the corporate world; Titanic’s (1997) Rose grapples with a monumental tragedy as Stephanie mentally recovers from the attack on the World Trade Center; and The Breakfast Club’s (1985) commentary on small-town claustrophobia reminds Stephanie of her own anxiety about returning to her childhood home. These, among other characters, dot the novel as Stephanie sorts out her job and her love life—reigniting an old flame when she heads home. The pop-culture references are fun and charming, and the protagonist’s connection to them is unique. Tonwe relies on them to provide psychological depth, however, which sometimes flattens Stephanie’s world; the plain prose does little to mitigate the effect (“I spent my nights, and even some of my days, curled up in front of my television with them, watching old movies”). Still, Stephanie’s novel use of iconic films to cope with trauma makes her a relatable, appealing character.

A moving narrative that sometimes leans too heavily on pop-culture homages.