While the main character, Robin Fisher, in the novel, Please Proceed to the Nearest Exit, is only a preteen-aged girl, the tone of the novel and its thematic issues which are covered in the book, are both mature and serious.

While she is surprisingly detached to an almost unbearable indifference, both in her tone, and in her unexpected choices and responses to those around her as she tries to navigate an understanding of what she’s been forced to experience, the memories and sentimentalities that she holds on to are ever present in the narrative of the book.

But, the book is not entirely about her though it’s written in her voice. It is as much about her mother, Elaine Fisher, as it is about the other women and girls that course through the novel with their own personal stories and experiences.

 From Carol Closter, the friend she resists and then reluctantly inherits, an adamant and devoted Bible-believing Christian who is ostracized and bullied at their Ronald Reagan High School.

To Melanie D’Angelo, a childhood friend she trusts to be her ally until she realizes their priorities are no longer in sync.

To the women that foster the changes in her mother’s turbulent bouts of drama, depression, and manic lifestyle changes including Vera Miller, a professional country club wife whose marriages expire almost as quickly as they begin; to The Girls, Lorna and Suzanne, whose secretarial gifts are a key introduction to the working and single life that Elaine Fisher must be inducted; which eventually evolve into new friendships found in The Sisters, Willow, Aurora, and Celeste, feminist activists who empower one another during the political changes happening in the United States when many boys and men were called to enlist into the U.S. Army to fight in Vietnam.

While the girls and women in the novel are left to renegotiate their lives according to the trauma they face, be it either: abandonment, hypocrisy, jealousy, or rape, they are not entirely alone in their suffering.

The boys and men have their share, too.

From the suffocating show of appearances for Jim Fisher who lived out most of his days in a separate pool house; to Mr. Galpin’s grieving loss of wife and child; to the misjudgement of Moody Miller; and the insecurities of Jamie Finley, whose intelligence and kindness devolves into antipathy towards the injustice of death and violence found in war.

The characters are well diversified and represented clearly to the reader through the author’s descriptions and dialogue even though the tone of the book reveals a stagnant and static feeling of hopelessness found in the small town of Golden in which they reside.

For Robin Fisher and her mother, the drudgery of life seems as dry and stifling as the coarseness of their desert town.

But, even though the plot carries with it the unexpected tragedies and trauma of its characters, often times unjustly so, the perpetual hope and conviction of Carol Closter in the faith of her God against the injustices of the world make her both an uncanny, quirky victim—and hero.

Elaine Fisher, too, in all her failings as a wife and a mother, seems to, in her ability to smoke cigarettes incessantly and recreate herself depending on the whim of her desires, speaks to a sort of bravery and survival against a time when women were not afforded independence or rewarded respect for their independent efforts. She is as colourful as her interior design antics, to her short-lived, but passionate attachments to the different men in her life.

The narrative is not heavy, though its melancholy can be found in the grave indifference the main character subjugates herself to as both a context for coping and stubborn rebellion, not to mention a growing psychosis and fascination with lighters and fire.

Yet, the book, is unapologetic for its characters’ wariness, but rather a testament to the hurt and tragedy that can sometimes afflict even the most prepared. The book reads as a resounding, “It is what it is,” mantra that neither pities itself, nor exaggerates its hardships—but admits its torment and suffering through the emotional and physical scars in which the characters must bear.

Somewhere in all of that, is tenderness—and an acceptance of second chances, no matter how small of a sliver a second chance may be.

It’s a touching, hard book—one to be read with a shocking, yet empathetic eye.
***
Characters: 5 stars
Plot: 5 stars
Language/Narrative: 4.5 stars
Dialogue: 5 stars
Pacing: 5 stars
Cover Design: 3 stars
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Zara’s Overall Rating: 4.5 stars
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Note: I also included the author's bio and links to connect with the author on social media.