The Clasp, by Sloane Crosley - book review: Comic soufflé with extra fizz
Sloane Crosley's new novel is a belated coming of age tale
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Your support makes all the difference.The Clasp is a three-hander starring Victor, Nathaniel and Kezia, young Americans who shoot out of university into chaotically adult existences. Each is recognisable enough to feel like a type, albeit in nicely rounded ways. Victor is the brilliant, dysfunctional semi-genius, if only he could remember to wear shoes. Nathaniel glides around Hollywood with so little friction that everyone believes, not incorrectly, that he has it too easy. Kezia is smart, sexy and insecure.
Such familiarity breeds contentment rather than contempt, especially if you like slightly belated coming-of-age tales. Crosley’s plot enhances the fun, nodding towards gravitas but remaining so light on its feet that the drama never really threatens to come down to earth. Her set piece scenes are especially easy on the eye: a tartly amusing posh wedding, road trips across France, college hi-jinks, some Down-if-not-Out in Hollywood, New York and Paris. The characters are likeable and sufficiently young and/or empty to be enthralled by the idea of life rather than life itself: “creations imaginaire” as one French character puts it.
The musings about authenticity and falseness are mediated by an interesting, if ultimately uninvolving sub-plot about Guy de Maupassant. Crosley herself is best when she is downright funny. Her prose is the literary equivalent of a light-as-air soufflé, made from recipes by Candace Bushnell and a young Donna Tartt. Best known for essays on contemporary manners, Crosley proves a deft social comedian. A crazed bride “zig-zagging her way across the tent on an air-kissing rampage”. A businessman “engrossed on a competitive typing streak”. I laughed when Kezia scorned a younger version of herself whose “outfit has seemingly been shredded by rival wolf packs”. Or Nathaniel’s hygienic concerns about his cellphone being used as a sex toy.
Even the best soufflé risks deflation. One one-liner – “She shed college like a snake” – took the pith, straining for concision at the expense of sense. The line suggests, by turns, that Kezia is a snake, that actual snakes attend college and that Kezia wears them like a feather boa (constrictor).
Glitches aside, Crosley’s effervescent style is the star of a novel that is consistently witty, above all in the fizzy dialogue. If The Clasp tastes more like superior prosecco than vintage champagne, that’s fine by me. Prosecco is more quaffable, and champagne gives you headaches. Let’s drink to a real comic talent.
The Clasp, by Sloane Crosley, Hutchinson £12.99
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