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Novel pokes fun at Seattle houses and style

August 22, 2012 @ 2:22 pm (Updated: 5:17 pm - 8/22/12 )

Seattle, known in the literary world for its kinky, bondage-loving billionaire in the Fifty Shades series, is featured in a new novel that describes our city as an "unfashionable, bewildering place."

"Where'd You Go, Bernadette" tells the fictional story of Bernadette Fox, a woman who's relocated from Los Angeles to Seattle and is frustrated by the city.

SempleAuthor, Maria Semple, can relate to the character she's created. Seattle is "just not a funny place," Semple told The New York Times.

She moved from LA to Seattle with her husband and daughter who was just entering preschool.

"I was immediately thrust into the hyperactive, PC parenting culture. I felt like I was the disheveled, antisocial mom all the other mothers judged," she says.

"I was in a miserable mind frame, and I found that I was driving around and all I was thinking about were funny things about how awful Seattle was. I would do these riffs in my head and I would polish them in my head. It was poisonous and self-pitying."

Her character Bernadette considers Seattle to be an "earnest, unfashionable, bewildering place" where five-way intersections clog traffic, Microsoft is Big Brother, invasive blackberry bushes are a mysterious citywide plague and Craftsman houses are annoyingly everywhere.

craftsman"Turn-of-the-century Craftsman, beautifully restored Craftsman, reinterpretation of Craftsman, needs-some-love Craftsman, modern take on Craftsman," Bernadette rants.

"It’s like a hypnotist put everyone from Seattle in a collective trance. You are getting sleepy, when you wake up you will want to live only in a Craftsman house, the year won’t matter to you, all that will matter is that the walls will be thick, the windows tiny, the rooms dark, the ceilings low, and it will be poorly situated on the lot."

I live in a Craftsman. She's got a point. She also complaints about vagrants, Alaskans, drivers, Canada, Christians, the "gnats" in the PTA at her daughter's school, the entire state of Idaho, and anyone "provincial" enough to think Seattle's is a satisfying place to live.

Semple, a comedy writer who worked on the television shows "Arrested Development" and "Mad About You" says her opinion of Seattle changed from the time she arrived, to the moment she finished the first draft of her book.

"I was starting to like a lot of things about Seattle. The chill was melting and I realized I was growing out of this phase I was in. Now I love it here and I can’t imagine living anywhere else," she says.

By LINDA THOMAS

Photo courtesy publisher Little, Brown and Company

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Comments (9)


  • Add A Comment

  • Daddy Dennis wrote...
    The fashion of Seattle
    August 22, 2012 2:40 pm
    I love how it ended. It's not that Seattle is unfashionable. It is that all other coastal metroplexes in the western world are slaves to fashion. We are utilitarian and it works. Listen to our music. Good, right? There you go!

    Since I am from one of the most literate cities on the planet, I will probably read this book!

    Great perspective. Loved it.

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  • Pair o'dimes wrote...
    Literacy
    August 22, 2012 4:29 pm
    The thing is in this ever-dumbening(?) country, it seams unlitarasy is beecoming rly fashunibel. Just one more thing that makes Seattle uncool. Reading's for chumps when the TV tells me what I should buy, and my religion tells me what's right and wrong.
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  • boomshakalaka wrote...
    ...
    August 22, 2012 7:53 pm
    .... as we all know, San Francisco is where locals throw parties, fart in their empty wine glasses, and are smug enough to revel in their own stank. In Seattle, it's not farts, but their own turds. It's what's for dinner.
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  • CharavanBie wrote...
    From a newcomers point of view
    August 23, 2012 6:34 am
    After being here just over a year, Seattle is a great city to visit, but you wouldn't want to live here. Pikes Place, the waterfront, space needle etc are all really great palces to visit, but when you live here it's not like you go there every day. Where you do go is the parking lot known as I5. What you do walk past every day are aggressive homeless people who really could use some mental help instead of their next fix. What you do see on your TV news every morning is another shooting, gang violence, rapes etc. And don't get me started on all of the bleeding heart liberal hippy's. Can't even get a plastic bag anymore. Yep, I am out of here in less than a week and cannot wait! I will visit again someday but never live here again.
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  • alexa0414 wrote...
    BYE BYE
    August 23, 2012 11:18 am
    You must be one of the really grumpy ones I see on I-5 Good riddance. We like happy people.
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  • Oly80 wrote...
    maybe...
    August 23, 2012 7:14 am
    just maybe, the "chill" lies in the people who move here expecting something they made up in their heads, only to realize that Seattle isn't like where they've come from.

    glad the "chill" melted for her, but it does seem more like her inability to adapt well to her new environment that finally wore down.

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  • CharavanBie wrote...
    Oly
    August 23, 2012 8:47 am
    I haven't experienced the Seattle freeze at all. Maybe I lucked out and got good neighbors and co-workers but I had a great experience as far as people I have interacted with.
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  • alexa0414 wrote...
    Agreed
    August 23, 2012 11:21 am
    Well stated. It's not like Cali, I wouldn't want to live in that fake place. So if you move here you should be expecting something different. Being a native to Seattle, I find myself really offended by this article and mean comments. If you don't like it...leave.
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