Coming of age and finding a way
In Katherine Taylor's pseudo-autobiography, learning to let go can be the best lesson of all
By Mengly Taing
Published: July 26th, 2007 | 4:57pm
When we reach a certain point in our lives when nothing seems to feel the way it should, what are the rules for saying goodbye? Can we really walk away from what we know isn’t right when what we truly want is still a mystery?
For Katherine Taylor, the answer is yes.
In her largely autobiographical debut, Rules for Saying Goodbye
At 13, Katherine is compelled by her wayward mother to enroll at an east-coast boarding school to escape the monotony of their less than extraordinary existence in rustic Fresno. Once at the fictional Claver School in Boston, Katherine finds herself thrown into the excessive world of children of privilege, who drink cocktails with their grandmothers on Park Avenue and experiment with cocaine in their dorm rooms.
After high school, Katherine moves to a liberal arts college in California to study theater. She takes up bartending duties to support herself through auditions and writing her first book. However, having inherited her mother's fear of mediocrity, she runs away from anyone and anything remotely familiar. Yet, even her move to New York cannot change her lack of enthusiasm to star on Broadway or finish the novel she always promised she would pen. As she continues to work from bar to bar, Katherine begins to believe she is most confident when working behind the counter, finding comfort in strangers, and living in anonymity in a city that is full of them.
But, even the city that never sleeps becomes a trap as Katherine's lifestyle again becomes nearly too comfortable for her to escape. Instead of making things happen in her life, she lives vicariously through her friends and hopes someday her life will find her. She looks for an escape in all the wrong places and waits for excuses that never come.
As Katherine approaches her big 3-0, she must come to terms with the fact that many of her friends have moved on into their adult lives.
In between late New York nights, brushes with stingy celebrities, and jaunts to Europe with ill-matched boyfriends, is a New York backdrop that captures the zeitgeist of a generation living in the aftermath of 9/11. Katherine's friends are all characters we are all familiar with. They remind us of friends we know who are also meandering through their existential lives. They even remind us of ourselves, which is why this book will grow on you.
Like her peers, Katherine is forced to negotiate her place in the world and it is only through her jaded quests and failed relationships that she finally learns to be responsible for her own happiness. By walking away from her comfort zone, Katherine finds the corridor to her future, because, in the words of another free spirit, life only happens when you're busy making other plans.
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ABOUT THE BOOK:
Rules for Saying Goodbye
By Katherine Taylor
311 pages
List Price: $24.00
Issue #35
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