This Is Where We Live

April 5, 2010
Married 30-something artists Claudia and Jeremy Munger are the unlucky anchors of Brown's shaky sophomore novel, an of-the-moment time capsule in the mold of her well-received All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
. Claudia is a filmmaker whose first feature is about to be released; Jeremy is a musician on the brink of mainstream success; together they are living in boho splendor in a newly purchased L.A. bungalow. But when Claudia's film bombs, Jeremy's band breaks up, their adjustable rate mortgage balloons, and Jeremy's famous painter ex-girlfriend, Aoki, comes back on the scene, the Mungers' sense of themselves is harshly tested. The gauntlets the Mungers face verge on Kafkaesque, yet the novel proceeds with painful earnestness. Particularly detracting are the one-note supporting characters: Jeremy and Claudia's parents, an annoying roommate, the corpulent potential producer of Claudia's next film. Aoki, meanwhile, plays a pivotal role but is burdened with a heavy load of temperamental artist clichés. There are lovely small moments—Claudia's awkward run-in with a former student, for instance—that give hope that the undeniably talented author will find her footing again after this flawed effort.

April 1, 2010
From the opening scene in which an earthquake shakes Los Angeles, Brown's tart second novel (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, 2008), about a pair of hip Californians facing financial and marital collapse, couldn't be more timely.

Rising filmmaker Claudia and indie rock star Jeremy married and bought their 1,300-square-foot bungalow for $600,000 during the height of the housing bubble. With a big movie contract pending for Claudia and an album deal in the works for Jeremy, the couple plans to be out from under the increasingly steep interest-only mortgage payments soon. Unfortunately, after a film Claudia's written and directed tanks at the box office, her new contract dries up while Jeremy's band dissolves before finishing an album. Moreover, Jeremy has not paid the mortgage for several months and now the bank won't renegotiate the loan. As the possibility of losing the house looms, cracks appear in the marriage. Responsible, hardworking Claudia's more conventional side emerges; desperate to keep the house, she takes a job teaching film at a private high school. Jeremy, who works fitfully as a T-shirt designer and takes pride in his bohemianism, which borders on irresponsibility, was already chafing at the demands of the house when the mortgage crisis arose. Before he met Claudia, he had been a music/art world darling in New York, the lover and muse of a now world-famous artist named Aoki. One of her paintings of him hangs in the bungalow, and he refuses Claudia's request to sell it despite the needed cash it would bring. Instead they take in a tenant who sets the house on fire. By then Aoki, emotionally unstable but still alluring, has shown up to tempt Jeremy away from his marriage. A desperate Claudia is engaging in her own moral capitulation—falsifying a student's grades to get a lucrative film deal from the girl's father.

The phony happy ending mars what is for the most part a cringingly funny satire of love and money among the artsy class.

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Starred review from June 1, 2010
Brown's follow-up to her biting debut, "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything", is another addictive read. Brown takes us into the lives of Claudia and Jeremy Munger. They're California-cool: she's got a hot new indie film coming out, and he's on the cusp of finishing a fresh album that music biz executives have high hopes for. Young marrieds, they just purchased an adorable but ridiculously priced cottage in the California hills. Then the real estate market plummets, Claudia's film tanks, and Jeremy's album can't seem to creep to the finish line. No money is coming in at all, and soon their house moves into foreclosure. So the groovy artistic lifestyle fully tiltsClaudia gets a job teaching film at a snooty private school and tries to push Jeremy into a "real job." Then when Jeremy's famous and beautiful artist ex shows up, the Mungers' already stressed marriage is truly tested. VERDICT This telling look at how the current economic crisis affects one family shows that Brown is no one-hit wonder. The writing is crisp and fast, and while this book lacks the dark humor of her first novel, it's still a great contemporary read. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/15/10; library marketing; ebook ISBN 978-0-679-60384-9; unabridged audio CD ISBN 978-0-307-73620-6.]Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2010
Browns skillful follow-up to her well-received debut (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, 2008) is set in L.A. and opens with a minor earthquake, signaling the fissure thats about to open up in the marriage between Claudia, an aspiring filmmaker, and Jeremy, an aspiring musician. Career setbacks and the reappearance of Jeremys former flame arent the only cracks in their foundation. The couple is also saddled with debt, and foreclosure looms. Their differing reactions to this crisis suggest how far both are willing to compromise their dreams to save their home. Alternating between Claudias and Jeremys perspectives, Brown proves adept at fully inhabiting both male and female characters in her sympathetic portrait of a troubled marriage. She also elevates her material with sharp cultural observations and pointed commentary on the current economy while gamely tackling what it means to be a grown-up and how our idea of who we think we should be gets in the way of who we really are. At once playful and heartbreaking, this novel never feels less than wholly true.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)