Good Material

Andy kindly parts ways with Kelly, explaining that he needs to focus on emotional health over physical health. When he returns to his apartment, he invites Morris to join him at his mother’s house for Christmas. Morris accepts and excitedly shows Andy a letter that he received from Julian Assange thanking him for his support and declaring him “an important and invaluable member of our society” (378-79). It is later revealed that Andy crafted the letter to make Morris happy and Avi wrote it for him. Morris is happy that Andy has decided to stay in the apartment and tells him that he isn’t very good at giving advice. Still, if Andy were his son, he would encourage him to understand that women are complex and the best path forward is to be kind to them instead of trying to understand them.

After reaching out to Emery for advice on new comedy content, Andy composes a letter to Jon in which he honestly and vulnerably lays out how much the breakup with Jen sent him into an emotional spiral. He lists for Jon all the unhealthy ways he dealt with his grief, including drinking too much and using social media to stalk Jen and Seb, legitimizing any unhinged behavior that Jon may engage in to process his feelings. Andy apologizes for how men fail each other in being open with their feelings and gives him his copy of Why Elephants Cry. Andy then composes a letter to Jen, which he says he’ll never send, and it includes a list entitled “Reasons Why I Loved Being With Jen” (387). The list subverts the things on Andy’s first list that he said annoy him and instead celebrates how those traits endear him to her. For example, Andy doesn’t hate Jen’s family; instead, it makes him wish that he had a big family. He apologizes that he loved her “so much more than I liked myself” (391), and he will always be thankful that they met.

Andy gets dressed for a comedy gig where he will try new material and wonders if he can somehow work election jokes into the act. Morris is disinfecting every surface in the apartment and tells Andy that he may not be coming to the performance due to “where we are with cases” (392), referring to coronavirus. Andy sent Jen a text but hasn’t received a response. He sees her in the audience when he takes the stage at the venue.

The narration switches to Jen’s point of view, and she lists all the things about Andy that annoy her and some hurtful things that he did. For example, Andy refused to go to therapy but mocked her for going. She lists being frustrated with his lack of career ambition and constant complaining. Because Andy struggles to express his emotions, Jen feels that he relied too much on her for emotional stability. She calls him “[s]elf-pitying. He has a distorted view of how everyone else sees him because of his low self-esteem but also because he likes wallowing” (395). Jen bemoans Andy’s tendency towards nostalgia and niche musical interests. She also labels him “[i]nsecure. Needy. Codependent” (396). The list concludes with Jen’s frustration with Andy’s reaction to the breakup, which made it harder for her.

Jen begins narrating her side of the story by explaining how she loved dressing up like a bride as a child. Coming from a conservative Catholic family, Jen’s parents expected that she would grow up, marry, and have lots of children like everyone else in their family. When Jen’s sister Miranda came out in high school, Jen felt like the pressure on her to marry was doubled, claiming that she “was burdened with two daughters’ worth of marital expectations” (400). Ironically, Miranda married before Jen and had children with her partner. Jen grew up thinking that her parents had the perfect marriage but discovered that her father had been unfaithful many times. This, plus Jen’s realization that her mother gave up everything to be married and have children, altered Jen’s view of traditional marriage, and she decided that it wasn’t something she wanted.

After working hard at Oxford to fulfill her parents’ expectations, Jen gave up her dream of traveling to South America in exchange for taking a job. She enjoyed her twenties partying and having casual sex and never minded being single until she reached her thirties and noticed that many of her friends were settling down with partners. When she turned 31, Jen decided to try being in a relationship and went on many dates, but nothing came of them. Her best friend Jane set her up with Avi’s friend Andy, and when they met for the first time, Jen knew that he was different from the other guys she had dated. Jen found Andy’s unconventional lifestyle intriguing, and she claimed that she was “determined to get this right” (408), so she decided not to sleep with him on the first date by pretending to be on her period. Jen fell in love with Andy’s creativity and passion for intimacy, and they moved in together after dating for just 18 months.

Eventually, parts of Andy’s personality grated on Jen, and things she used to find endearing aggravated her. More than just minor daily annoyances, Andy began pushing Jen to talk about having children and resented how much time and effort she put into her career when she didn’t take him seriously. As all their friends began having children, Jen realized that she didn’t want to be a mother. She and Andy began to argue more, and he often didn’t listen to her. As she and Andy grew apart, Miranda told Jen that during her IVF cycle, she learned that she had a small number of eggs, which is genetic, and suggested that Jen get a fertility check. This, coupled with pressure at work, increased Jen’s mental anguish. Andy got a television gig hosting a game show called Ask or Task, a big break for him, but the filming schedules meant that he worked late nights, and they hardly saw one another. The separation didn’t help their already strained relationship, and in the ensuing months, several life-altering events worsened the already bad situation.

Jen’s beloved grannie died, and just before she passed, she told Jen not to get married because she has an education, her own home, and a career she loves, which is all she needs to be content. Jen later watched a Joni Mitchell documentary in which Mitchell shares a story about how her grandmothers had to give up their childhood dreams for marriage, and Jen felt that it was a sign. Then, Jen’s last childless friend, Sarah, announced her pregnancy, which Jen describes as making her feel an “intense sense of betrayal” (419). Jen describes having to mourn the loss of all her friends to their partners and children, which only intensified her desire to stay unattached. Andy’s show was canceled, but he didn’t tell her, and she got a promotion and didn’t tell him. Jen saw a fertility doctor who confirmed that, like Miranda, she had a low egg count and advised her to either conceive immediately or freeze her eggs. Jen angrily left the appointment, frustrated that she might have to turn down her promotion and stop her life to have a child. After a trip to Ireland with Andy, Avi, and Jane, Jen knew that she no longer wanted to be in a relationship with him. She was miserable on their trip to Paris, knowing what she had to do but feeling terrible about it. When she finally told him after they returned home, he was devastated, and she quickly moved out and stayed with Miranda. Jen wrote a letter to Andy’s mom, and she called Jen to thank her. Andy’s mom confessed that she often thinks about what her life would have been like if she’d never had a child.

Jen says that she sometimes mishandled the breakup because she missed the familiarity of their relationship and worried about Andy’s emotional state. Her girls’ spa trip was a restorative weekend, and her friends helped her process her emotions. Avi called Jane, worried that Andy had drunk too much, which caused Jen to worry about him even more. She eventually resorted to creating a fake online persona called Tash to catfish Andy and check up on him. She eventually deleted the Tash account out of guilt when she realized that Andy was getting too attached.

Jen met Seb at her 35th birthday celebration at work. Initially, she was attracted to him because he represented everything Andy wasn’t: mature, settled into his career, and self-aware. However, each time she was with Seb, she couldn’t stop thinking about Andy and eventually broke it off. When she found out that Andy was dating Sophie, she used social media to search for her, but Sophie blocked her. Jen was most hurt when she discovered that Andy had added one of their favorite songs by Otis Redding to his playlist for Sophie. Seeing Andy at Jackson’s birthday party reignited all the comfortable feelings that Jen had for Andy. Though she admits that being with him again felt right, she knew that she couldn’t fall back into a relationship. Jen visited Jane after Andy left her apartment, and Jane encouraged her not to feel guilty about following her instincts. While she was there, Avi was writing a fake letter for Andy’s landlord, Morris.

Presently, Jen quits her job and plans a year-long South America trip. Andy creates an entirely new show based around his breakup breakdown, and he calls to let her know about it and invites her to the premiere. Though she’s reticent about their personal life being put on display, Andy assures her that it’s only about him. The show, titled “One man’s journey in The Madness” (449), includes all the embarrassing moments of his breakup including dumping her perfume in the canal and attending a fake therapy session. Andy even includes a quote from the elephant grief book. The show is a hit with the crowd, and Andy’s agent loves it so much that she wants to take it to Edinburgh that summer. At the after-party, Jen congratulates him on the show, and they agree to keep in touch. Jen walks home alone.