Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Sundays at Tiffany's by James Patterson & Gabrielle Charbonnet

Eight-year-old Jane Margaux is the daughter of a chic and famous Broadway producer. And since her mother is always busy producing musical hits and her father is mostly vacationing with his new trophy wife in Nantucket, she seems to spend a whole lot of time on her own. That's all right though, because Michael, her imaginary friend, is always there. But what's going to happen to her when Michael leaves her after her ninth birthday? He doesn't want to leave her, but he must. Alas, she won't remember him anyway, so it doesn't matter. Michael is somewhere in his early to mid thirties -- a handsome man with magnetic green eyes. His job is to be a child's imaginary friend for a while. He cannot be seen by grownups during these assignments. Then he lives a semi-normal life whenever he's on sabbatical. Twenty-three years later, he sees Jane again. She's a grownup now, working on turning her musical production into a feature film. The play is based on her relationship with Michael. She has never been able to forget her imaginary friend, no matter what he had told her. Her life is sort of a mess -- a controlling mother, an actor boyfriend who is using her, and an imaginary friend she can't seem to get off her mind. What happens when Jane and Michael are face to face after so many years? And how is it possible that this man -- someone she had thought was a figment of her imagination -- is actually real?

Read it in one sitting, liked the premise but the story was rather shallow. I found it interesting how a mother who had so little time for her daughter when she was a child would cling to her so much as she became an adult. The ending was a bit contrived but sweet. One reviewer commented how this reminded them of the Velveteen Rabbit and it really does.