Branded for her affair with her congressman boss, an intern and blogger changes her name and moves to a remote town in Maine with her young daughter before local prompting to run for public office forces her to reckon with the past. Cruelly branded for her affair with her congressman boss, an intern and blogger changes her name and moves to a remote town in Maine with her young daughter before local prompting to run for public office forces her to reckon with the past. By the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. Simultaneous. Young Jane Young is a novel about a world that continues to want to define what women are and what they can, and cannot do. It captures not just the mood of our recent highly charged political season, but is a funny, sympathetic and smart take on the double standards that are alive and well and waiting to trip up ordinary and extraordinary women alike. Young Jane Youngs heroine is Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida who makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss-who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married-and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesnt take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late night talk show punchline; she is slut shamed and considered a blight on politics in general.How does one go on after this? In Avivas case, she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. She tries to start over as a wedding planner, to be smarter about her life, and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident. But when, at the urging of others, she decides to run for public office herself, that long ago mistake trails her via the Internet like a scarlet A. For in our age, Google guarantees that the past is never, ever, truly past, that everything youve done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternity. And its only a matter of time until Avivas daughter, Ruby, finds out who her mother was, and is, and must decide whether she can still respect her.
