Lifestyle
'Women and Children First' is a tale about how actions and choices affect others
Toward the beginning of Alina Grabowski’s kaleidoscopic debut Women and Children First, 16-year-old Jane Ryder rides her bike through the rain-slicked streets of Nashquitten, a fictional town on the Massachusetts coast, south of Boston. It’s a Saturday morning in May, and the smell of “seaweed and crab shells” hangs in the air — Jane’s street has flooded due to a cracked seawall that the town won’t repair “because it’s on the side of the beach where people actually live, as opposed to the side where people ‘summer.’”
As Jane bikes past the “Murder Merge” onto the town’s single highway, where a thicket of white flags memorialize the teenagers who died in car wrecks, she thinks about the kids she’s seen taking selfies there, “writing long captions about childhood and angels and the fragility of life…holding each other close…because they wondered what it would be like if they died, if they would be called funny or nice or smart or handsome or hot.” Jane knows that in a town like Nashquitten, where a half a dozen high school students have died in the past five years, where opioids are easy to cop and people regularly disappear, no one is remembered for long.
What Jane doesn’t know is that the night before, as the rain blew into town, her classmate Lucy Anderson died under mysterious circumstances at a house party, and that this tragedy will upend her community and form a testament to its interconnectedness.
The puzzle of Lucy’s death propels Women and Children First, but Grabowski’s novel is not a thriller or a whodunit. The novel unfolds in ten chapters, split down the middle between “Pre” and “Post” Lucy’s death, each narrated in the first person by a different Nashquitten girl or woman linked in some way to the tragedy, from classmate Jane to college counselor Layla to best friend Sophia to mother Brynn. The narrators form a Greek chorus telling this tale of a fractured, grieving community, their constellation of perspectives gradually offering shards of how Lucy died and who she was. Through her pitch-perfect summoning of this intergenerational female cast, Grabowski explores the fickleness of truth, the fallibility of memory, how difficult it is to really see those closest to us, and how easy it is to betray one another.
Grabowski’s choice to set Women and Children First in the fictional Nashquitten is a smart one. In this parochial community, everyone’s lives overlap, creating perfect conditions for a novel that depends on a web of interwoven perspectives. Grabowski clearly drew on her own upbringing in Scituate, Mass. — another insular South Shore town battered by coastal erosion and flooding — in shaping her setting, though Nashquitten is more worn down at the heels. It’s a heavily Catholic fishing town dominated by a withering middle class; those who remain are stuck there because of thwarted ambitions.
Through the shards of the narrators’ stories and memories, we learn that Lucy had dreams of escape. Those who knew Lucy thought of her as an artist who painted on massive canvases with water from tide pools and turned her bedroom wall into a mural with “a swirl of ocean colors.” Through Layla, we learn that Lucy had ambitions of going to school in New York; later, Sophia tells us that Lucy imagined the city as a place where “you can be whoever you want,” unlike Nashquitten, where “anything you do becomes this stain that sticks to you forever.” Lucy’s stain was her epilepsy — she’d had a seizure on the floor of a school bus earlier that year, and one of her classmates filmed it and soundtracked the video “to an EDM song whose beat matched the shaking of her body.”
The night Lucy died, she was at a party with the classmate she believed made the video, talking about him with two other girls before she fell to her death off an unfinished deck. Did she have another seizure? Was she pushed? Was it an accident? Was it suicide?
As Women and Children First unfolds, Grabowski gradually brings the reader closer to Lucy while planting seeds that any sense of the truth of what happened to her will ultimately be asymptotic. Her narrator’s stories are at times contradictory, revealing how their perspectives and memories are blinkered by their own biases and experiences. As I read, I kept flipping back to earlier chapters, re-contextualizing each girl or woman’s story, underlining the ringing moments of insight that Grabowski has a knack for, like, “We’re always in the paths of others, but it can be disorienting to reconcile that proximity with the impenetrability of a stranger’s choices,” or, “when someone disappears without explanation, you have the power to determine what happened to them.”
Ultimately, the novel is less about the mystery of Lucy and more about how our actions impact one another, even when — especially when — we think we lack agency. The women and girls of Nashquitten tend toward self-preservation, even selfishness. The older women especially have learned how hard it is to hold men to account, and instead try to protect their daughters, even when it means hurting others. Maureen, the PTA president who seeks absolution at confession for choices she can’t forgive herself for, believes that her daughter’s generation will never understand “that we were never girls, not really. For a moment we were children, yes. But a girl and a child are not the same. A child is a pet. A girl is prey.”
This is not to say that Women and Children First presents a bleak vision of human nature. At the center of the novel, a teenager named Marina retells a story that Grabowski herself grew up hearing, about Rebecca and Abigail Bates of Scituate, “the American Army of Two.” “The duration of the tale reminds me that the actions of two girls can have a lasting effect on many,” Grabowski writes in her acknowledgments. Rebecca and Abigail were the daughters of the lighthouse keeper, left in charge one day during the War of 1812; when they spotted a British warship approaching, they played their fife and drum so fiercely that the soldiers thought an army was awaiting them on the shore. When Marina’s mother first told her the story, the girl called it fake. “And if I was lying? How does that change the story?” her mother quipped back. Women and Children First serves as a reminder that not only do our actions and choices effect change, but so too do our stories.
Kristen Martin is working on a book on American orphanhood for Bold Type Books. Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Believer, The Baffler, and elsewhere. She tweets at @kwistent.
Lifestyle
They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops
Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.
“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.
As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.
Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.
The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.
1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage
A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.
But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.
Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.
2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority
As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.
Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.
3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine
Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.
Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.
4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits
One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.
The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.
5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes
A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.
If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.
When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.
Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.
6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing
While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.
As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).
When John Lantigua, a retired journalist in Miami Beach, checked his email one recent morning, he was glad to see an invitation.
“It was like, ‘Come and share an evening with me. Click here for details,’” Mr. Lantigua said.
It appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from someone he once worked with at The Palm Beach Post, a man who had left Florida for Mississippi and liked to arrange dinners when he was back in town.
Mr. Lantigua, 78, clicked the link. It didn’t open.
He clicked a second time. Still nothing.
He didn’t realize what was going on until a mutual friend who had received the same email told him it wasn’t an invitation at all. It was a scam.
Phishing scams have long tried to frighten people into clicking on links with emails claiming that their bank accounts have been hacked, or that they owe thousands of dollars in fines, or that their pornography viewing habits have been tracked.
The invitation scam is a little more subtle: It preys on the all-too-human desire to be included in social gatherings.
The phishy invitations mimic emails from Paperless Post, Evite and Punchbowl. What appears to be a friendly overture from someone you know is really a digital Trojan horse that gives scammers access to your personal information.
“I thought it was diabolical that they would choose somebody who has sent me a legitimate invitation before,” Mr. Lantigua said. “He’s a friend of mine. If he’s coming to town, I want to see him.”
Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity firm, said she noticed the scam last holiday season.
“Phishing emails are not a new thing,” Ms. Tobac said, “but every six months, we get a new lure that hijacks our amygdala in new ways. There’s such a desire for folks to get together that this lure is interesting to people. They want to go to a party.”
Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.
Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.
“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”
Digital invitation platforms are trying to combat the scam by publishing guides on how to spot fake invitations. Paperless Post has also set up an email account — phishing@paperlesspost.com — for users to submit messages for verification. The company sends suspicious links to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit that maintains a database monitored by cybersecurity firms. Flagged links are rendered ineffective.
The scammers’ new strategy of exploiting the desire for connection is infuriating, said Alexa Hirschfeld, a founder of Paperless Post. “Life can be isolating,” Ms. Hirschfeld said. “When it looks like you’re getting an invitation from someone you know, your first instinct is excitement, not skepticism.”
Olivia Pollock, the vice president of brand for Evite, said that fake invitations tended to be generic, promising a birthday party or a celebration of life. Most invitations these days tend to have a specific focus — mahjong gatherings or book club talks, for instance. “The devil is in the details,” Ms. Pollock said.
Because scammers don’t know how close you are with the people in your contact list, fake invitations may also seem random. “They could be from your business school roommate you haven’t spoken to in 10 years,” Ms. Hirschfeld said.
Alyssa Williamson, who works in public relations in New York, was leaving a yoga class recently when she checked her phone and saw an invitation from a college classmate.
“I assumed it was an alumni event,” Ms. Williamson, 30, said. “I clicked on it, and it was like, ‘Enter your email.’ I didn’t even think about it.”
Later that day, she received texts from friends asking her about the party invitation she had just sent out. Her response: What party?
“The thing is, I host a lot of events,” she said. “Some knew it was fake. Others were like, ‘What’s this? I can’t open it.’”
Andrew Smith, a graduate student in finance who lives in Manhattan, received what looked like a Punchbowl invitation to “a memory making celebration.” It appeared to have come from a woman he had dated in college. He received it when he was having drinks at a bar on a Friday night — “a pretty insidious piece of timing,” he said.
“The choice of sender was super clever,” Mr. Smith, 29, noted. “This was somebody that would probably get a reaction from me.”
Mr. Smith seized on the phrase “memory making celebration” and filled in the blanks. He imagined that someone in his ex-girlfriend’s immediate family had died. Perhaps she wanted to restart contact at this difficult moment.
Something saved him when he clicked a link and tried to tap out his personal information — his inability to remember the password to his email account. The next day, he reached out to his ex, who confirmed that the invitation was fake.
“It didn’t trigger any alarm bells,” Mr. Smith said. “I went right for the click. I went completely animal brain.”
The new scam comes with an unfortunate side effect, a suspicion of invitations altogether. It’s enough to make a person antisocial.
“Don’t invite me to anything,” Mr. Lantigua, the retired journalist, said, only half-joking. “I’m not coming.”
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