Mary Jane, by Jessica Anya BlauRead about another entry on the list.
Imagine Daisy Jones’s world as interpolated by a straitlaced teenager whose world is inextricably altered by a summer-long encounter with a legendary rockstar and his celebrity wife in 1970s suburban Baltimore. That’s the premise of this novel, which finds the titular Mary Jane working as a nanny for an eccentric psychiatrist’s family and their high-profile live-in patients. The free-spirited musician challenges Mary Jane’s every notion of propriety and social convention with the usual sexual escapades and druggy antics. The summer job leads her on a self-actualizing journey, as she transforms from Sunday School–going good girl to countercultural devotee.
The Page 69 Test: Mary Jane.
Q&A with Jessica Anya Blau.
--Marshal Zeringue
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