Beach read that's quite serious

By Jennifer Weiner

Atria Books. 338 pp. $26.99

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Reviewed by Robin Black

Jennifer Weiner's new novel about four women and a baby is a skillful weave of multiple narratives, an absorbing read, and, for all its spot-on social commentary and luxury-item porn, a serious book at heart.

Early on in Then Came You, to be published Tuesday, Annie, the surrogate who carries the baby around whom all revolves, encounters the unfamiliar notion that a story might really be about something other than what it seems at first glance to be about. Less educated than she desires and awfully young at 22 to be a mother of two, Annie thinks wistfully about being able to decipher the underlying meanings in books. The passage is poignant, and also a well-timed reminder to ponder what Then Came You is really about.

Most obviously, it is the tale of how one baby comes into being, not the old-fashioned way, but through the reproductive technologies that have now produced thousands of people, and also immeasurable amounts of philosophical and ethical consideration. The four narrators are Jules, the brilliant and beautiful egg donor; Annie, the earnest surrogate; India, the social-climbing would-be mother; and Bettina, her notably sour stepdaughter. Jules, Bettina, and Annie are all in their early to mid-20s. India (formerly Samantha) is 42, though with the help of extensive cosmetic surgery and some convincing false IDs, she passes herself off as 38.

The book opens with Jules describing the occasion on which she was first approached about selling her eggs. The idea, coming from a complete stranger in a shopping mall, is a tough sell, initially. Also a tough sell is our first introduction to Jules, in which she complains both about passing her days in the oppressively too-perfect environment of Princeton University and about being so beautiful that it's a hassle. It's not so easy to warm up to a character with problems like those. But to Weiner's credit, Jules, who turns out to be both heartsick over her addict father and touchingly clueless about all things social, is more appealing than an account of this none-too-woeful litany makes her sound.

And the scene itself, the pitch - 20 grand for one round of egg-harvesting - is an excellent lead-in to what is arguably the book's main theme, which is not romantic love, or the desire to become a mother, or relationships between women, though each of those is woven throughout. It is money.

Money is the common thread among the four narratives and is also, through much of the book, the dominant motivating force behind all major actions. Money drives Jules to sell her eggs, drives Annie to become a surrogate, drives India to seduce and woo her billionaire husband, and, to a great extent, also drives Bettina to embark on exposing India's less-than-perfect past. In each case, there are additional motives at work (in two of them, those have to do with a daughter's desire to protect her father), but it is the power and lure of money that relate all of the women's stories as surely as does the baby in whose life each plays a role.

Moreover, the book's particular focus on monetary matters has to do with the many ways in which women's bodies can become commodities. There are Jules' eggs to be sold, and Annie's uterus to be, for want of a better word, leased. And there, arguably at the center, is India, who recalls her anger at a man who dumped her years before this way: "My face, my body, my youth - these were my commodities, and he'd wasted them . . . or, rather, I'd been dumb enough to squander them on him."

It is this emphasis that makes Then Came You a serious book. Serious as in often somber, despite lighter moments (The clothes! The food! The car service!). And serious as in likely to provoke a reader to ask difficult and important questions, not only about the complexities of egg donation and surrogacy, but also, through India's story line, about the sometimes confusing lines drawn between legally defined prostitution and the calculated seduction of a wealthy man for no reason beyond wanting to share his wealth.

Luckily, Weiner, who will discuss her book at the Free Library of Philadelphia at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, is deft enough and humorist enough to explore these questions without allowing the story to sink under their weight. The four-narrator structure helps keep the book from seeming at all ponderous. The individual segments are short, rarely more than 15 pages, and all four voices are chatty and engaging. But when it comes to that question Annie raises - What is the book really about? - the answer is a pretty heavy one.

Don't let that stop you, though, if you are looking for a beach read in the classic sense, something entertaining enough to make you forget to reapply the 30 SPF. Then Came You can easily fill that bill. But don't be surprised if it also makes you contemplate some important, complex matters along the way.