Sunday, Jul 6, 2008
In an excerpt from Lynn Harris' new novel, "Miss Media," a specialist in relationships has a hard time following her own rules.
Feb 2, 2004 | On the surface, Lynn Harris' new novel, "Miss Media," might seem just another attempt by an ex-dot-commer to satirize an era that, to those who got caught in it, was almost beyond ridicule. The setup is straightforward. The protagonist, Lola Somerville, is an online relationship advice columnist who sells her Web site to a big, well-funded New York dot-com called Ovum. Ovum is for women and run by women, and, at first, is the coolest place on earth to work. Then things start to go wrong.
The similarities to Oxygen, the cable channel/Web site that was ballyhooed in the late '90s as the ultimate online destination for women, are obvious and intended. But "Miss Media" isn't merely a savage, entrail-rending, bitter memoriam to the excesses of dot-com hubris, New York woman-style. That's not even the most interesting aspect of the novel. "Miss Media" is really a story about relationships and gender trouble, told in part through the emergent dialects of the online age -- e-mail, Internet dating, instant messaging. Harris has a keen, witty ear for how men and women communicate today about the messiness of their love lives (or lack thereof). The plight of her characters is intimately familiar, and the way they express themselves, whether by a hurried IM in the middle of the workday, or in the studied, anonymous flirtation of an e-mail courtship, is absolutely dead-on.
In the chapter excerpted below, Lola Somerville has come to work on a Monday morning after having A) gone home with a co-worker, Miles Farmington, after getting drunk at a company party, and B) blown off a first date with "Boqueron," someone she met through an Internet dating site, because she was hung over and in bed with Miles. For an online relationship advice columnist who takes a professionally dim view of casual office romances -- and who's starting to wonder if someone's trying to shine a bright light on hers -- it hasn't been a very good weekend.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Lola figured if she scrunched down small enough at her desk, Kat might not see her.
"Happy Monday, boss!" called Kat.
Hell's bells! Should have crawled under. Should not have worn bright pink and orange checked sweater.
"Hey," said Lola, barely turning around, making a loud display of typing busily.
"How's Ping-Pong?" asked Kat as her Mac chimed on. They both had the Panda-cam as their start-up page now. The zoo hadn't named the little one yet, so Douglas, after teasing them both about their obsession, had suggested Ping-Pong. Not bad.
"Still asleep," said Lola. It was, after all, like five a.m. in San Diego. Lola had come in early to immerse herself in work -- like that's an escape! -- as her home, too, was haunted. The rest of yesterday had been a wash: she'd called Annabel immediately ("I am calling you from the Cafe Reggio bathroom, but I'm so not on my date ...") and together they'd composed the contrite e-mail to Boqueron. Lola had spent the remainder of the day trying -- and failing with flying colors -- to avoid checking for his response. Nothing so far. Finally she'd slept, crookedly, on the post-futon Grownup Couch she'd bought with her Ovum windfall. She could hardly even look at her bed. It still held Miles's faint outline, like the Duvet of Turin.
Right, trying to immerse herself in work.
Dear Ultimatum Frisbee,
"So what'd I miss after I left Darts?" Kat again.
"Not much, I don't think," answered Lola.
Kat rolled up a chair, disco-ball earrings swinging. She wasn't getting the idea. Or maybe she was.
"So you and Miles shared a cab home, huh?" Sleater-Kinney was doing a sound check somewhere, so fortunately no one could have overheard a thing.
"How did you know that?" Lola hissed, stunned.
"Aha," grinned Kat. "You just told me."
Lola couldn't help but smile. "That's why I hired you," she sighed.
"You guys talking about Lola and Miles?" It was Ted.
Lola threw up her hands. "What, did someone send out another company-wide e-mail?"
"Come on, Lola, you know Kat and I share a knowledge base. Except she speaks HTML," said Ted. "Kat just told me she had a hunch, that's all. No one knows anything. We get how serious it is."
Lola's eyes widened.
" -- I mean, how seriously important it is to keep it quiet," Ted replied.
"But isn't it?" wondered Kat.
"Isn't what what?" asked Lola.
"I mean, you guys have real intentions, right? We know you'd only get into something at work that you were pretty serious about," Kat said, clearly doing her darndest to sound like she wasn't lecturing. "He does seem pretty cool."
"We'll see," said Lola, doing what she imagined was "smiling enigmatically." Anyone who wasn't Kat, or Annabel, would think she meant, "I have embarked on something too miraculous and ethereal to explain in earthly words." Kat, however, would know she meant, "I am not ready to talk about how badly I may have fucked up."
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