Evanovich Janet - Perfectly Plum: Unauthorized Essays on the Life, Loves, and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter

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Table of Contents

Other Titles in the Smart Pop Series

Taking the Red Pill
Seven Seasons of Buffy
Five Seasons of Angel
What Would Sipowicz Do?
Stepping through the Stargate
The Anthology at the End of the Universe
Finding Serenity
The War of the Worlds
Alias Assumed
Navigating the Golden Compass
Farscape Forever!
Flirting with Pride and Prejudice
Revisiting Narnia
Totally Charmed
King Kong Is Back!
Mapping the World of the Sorcerers Apprentice
The Unauthorized X-Men
The Man from Krypton
Welcome to Wisteria Lane
Star Wars on Trial
The Battle for Azeroth
Boarding the Enterprise
Getting Lost
James Bond in the 21stCentury
So Say We All
Investigating CSI
Literary Cash
Webslinger
Halo Effect
Neptune Noir
Coffee at Lukes
Greys Anatomy 101

LIFE

DESTINY: DISASTER!

Bev Katz Rosenbaum

Janet Evanovich begins One for the Money by having Stephanie tell a story about Joe Morelli, a game of choo-choo, a pastry counter, and a Buick. Its the setup for her relationship with Morelli, of course, but its also Stephanie in a nutshell: curious, rebellious, and not above taking a little well-earned revenge. Her core personality hasnt changed since she was seventeen. What if, Bev Rosenbaum asks, we could go further? What if, seeing Stephanie at seven years old, we could predict the course of the rest of her life?

YOU WANNA TALK DISASTERS? Easy, where Stephanie Plum is concerned. A more disaster-prone woman never walked the earth. Okay, granted, she is a bounty hunter, and blown-up cars are part of the gig (though hers do seem to explode a good deal more than those of other law-enforcement types... like, in every book). Ditto hair accidents and destroyed clothing. But lets talk life-type disasters. Relationships, for example. The truth is, poor Stephanie never had a chance at a normal life. A cornucopia of genetic (can you say Grandma Mazur?) and environmental (regular working-class neighborhood, my arse) factors combined into a toxic soup that virtually guaranteed a disastrous adulthood for our favorite bail bondswoman.

Remember the famous Up documentary series (7-Up, 14-Up, 21-Up , etc), the premise of which was taken from the Francis Xavier quote and Jesuit motto, Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man? In the series, director Michael Apted interviewed the same group of people at ages seven, fourteen, twenty-oneI believe hes up to forty-nine nowto determine if they ended up living the lives they seemed destined for at age seven. Im totally in love with the Up films, so Im going to try to apply that same premise to the Stephanie Plum books, and demonstrate precisely how genetic and environmental factors, together with a seminal incident from her childhood, turned Stephanie Plum into the walking disaster we know and love. Attempt being the key word. Keep in mind that, as a novelist, Im only a wannabe psychologist; I really have no idea which of the following laundry list of factors is responsible, in part or in whole, for how our beloved Stephanie turned out.

But while Im no psychologist, I am somewhat of an expert on disaster-prone children and teens. As I said, Im a novelist, and one who seems to specialize in odd, disaster-prone teenage heroines, possibly because of my own, er, colorful background. But my own childhood is the subject for a whole other essay in a whole other book. Or perhaps for a therapists couch.

But I digress. Back to Stephanie we go. Lets talk family tree first. And lets begin with Stephanies nutcase of a grandmother, the bony and bug-eyed Grandma Mazur who, when we first meet her in One for the Money, is coveting Stephanies sexy black biker shorts. Grandma Mazur loves the action (particularly the, er, exciting viewings at Constantine Stivas funeral parlor) and Stephanie, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, seems to share a special kinship with her loony grandmre. Possibly because Granny knows exactly how to push her daughters buttons and loves to do so. (Like grandmother, like granddaughter.) Indeed, the two often team up against Stephanies grimly determined-to-be-normal housewife mother Helen. Like when, say, Grandma Mazur wants to go to a viewing at Stivas that Helen doesnt want her to go to. (And who can really blame her? Grandma Mazur has leapt on corpses, pried open closed coffins, and much, much worse at Stivas.)

Which isnt to say Helen is completely normal herself. In fact, that almost psychopathic determination to lead a normal life, as evidenced by her on-the-clock dinner scheduling and constant food-related threats (she seems particularly to enjoy withholding pineapple upside-down cake) is practically a dead giveaway that the whole normalcy thing is a big act. Despite all her talk about how shed love to engage in regular dinner table conversations as opposed to chat about guns and murder and such (and aliens, in the case of Grandma Mazur), Helen clearly possesses a violent streak herself. Witness the food fight she instigates in Eleven on Top.

It seems pretty clear to me that Helen is one of those women who married and had children because she had to. (By the way, I have a hunch Grandma Mazur was forced to suppress her craziness as a young and middle-aged woman, too. She is obviously reveling in her geriatric freedom to do and say whatever the hell she wants.) My feeling about Helen is (sort of) confirmed when, in Seven Up, Stephanie asks her mother if she ever gets tired of her life. Helen mutters a series of vague remarks before finally admitting shed like to go back to school. Another telling detail: Helen develops a wee drinking problem in Eleven on Top. Though I suppose its possible a wacko family like hers could drive anybody to drink. Doesnt necessarily mean she has regrets about what shes doneor not donewith her life....

But it is a pretty safe guess that life as the disenchanted (i.e., bitter and crabby) Helens kid was no picnic. And its an equally good guess that Daddy Dearest did not make up for his wifes shortcomings. Fully retired at the beginning of the series, Stephanies father now drives a cab, mostly to get away from his wife and mother-in-law. When hes at home, he spends most of his time grunting and cursing.

Helens denial of her own sensibilities clearly backfired where her own child is concerned. But who wouldnt rebel against such a dour version of normal life? Under the circumstances, its hardly surprising that Stephanies childhood aspirations included becoming an intergalactic princess and marrying, not the son of the neighborhood plumber like her best friend Mary Lou, but Aladdin.

How interesting that in To the Nines, Stephanie admits that, like her sister Valerie, she, too, longs to be rescued. Dare I suggest that perhaps Stephanie never really wanted this crazy life shes chosen for herself? That she felt she had to lead an, um, unusual life because the alternative (i.e., Helens life) was just too horrible to contemplate?

And seeing as weve mentioned Stephanies sister Valerie...

Here is another Plum woman Stephanie obviously could not bear to emulate. Valerie was the Perfect Daughter, who grew up into the Perfect Wife and Motheralthough clearly, a latent wild streak ran deep in the Talbots-clad Valerie, who was so good for so long that something in her snapped when her perfect husband in California left her for a teenager. Now back in the Burg along with her two daughtersone preternaturally smart, and another who thinks shes a horseValeries become just as crazy as Stephanie, considering a bounty hunter career like hers, and getting knocked up by a decidedly strange child-man named Kloughn (giving Valerie the perfect excuse for her mood swings and general weirdness: hormones).

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