"Hilarious, suspenseful, and whip smart." —Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
"...Jones does an outstanding job of matching the tonal changes in this audiobook."- AudioFile on Let's Not Do That Again
From Grant Ginder, the author of The People We Hate at the Wedding, comes Let's Not Do That Again a poignant, funny, and slyly beguiling novel which proves that, like democracy, family is a messy and fragile thing —perfect for fans of Veep’s biting humor, the family drama of Succession, and the joys of Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here.
Nancy Harrison is running for Senate, and she’s going to win, goddamnit. Not that that’s her slogan, although it could be. She’s said all the right things. Passed all the right legislation. Chapped her lips kissing babies. There’s just one problem: her grown children.
Greta and Nick Harrison are adrift. Nick is floundering in his attempts to write a musical about the life of Joan Didion (called Hello to All That!). And then there’s his little sister Greta. Smart, pretty, and completely unmotivated, allowing her life to pass her by like the shoppers at the Apple store where she works.
One morning the world wakes up not to Nancy making headlines, but her daughter, Greta. She’s in Paris. With extremist protestors. Throwing a bottle of champagne through a beloved bistro’s front window. In order to save her campaign, not to mention her daughter, Nancy and Nick must find Greta before it’s too late.
Release date:
April 5, 2022
Publisher:
Henry Holt and Co.
Print pages:
304
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Also, there’s the problem of the smoke. It’s everywhere. The smell of burning wood and plastic assaulting her nostrils; the crisp static of smoldering embers. It’s raining, but that hardly helps: fires spill from the storefronts along the avenue. Flames outside of Bulgari; singed mannequins at Hugo Boss and Lacoste. A bank with smashed windows, turned into an open-air theater. Shirts with their tags still on them strewn across the street.
She finds herself part of an organized and slow-moving chaos. Protesters creep up the Champs-Élysées, their jackets slick with rain, until the police, feeling as if they’ve been too generous, force them to relinquish ground. This is how it works, how it surges. Two steps forward, one step back. The sea as the tide rises, climbing over shells on a long stretch of beach. Some of them wear gas masks that make them appear alien, insectile, and those who do not wrap their faces with handkerchiefs and scarves. A strip of wool bearing the logo of Paris Saint-Germain, or—in her case—a square of silk from Hermès. Often, she sees the marchers—patriots to some, terrorists to others—stop to take selfies. Here we are, and here France burns, their smiles say, and when they are finished, they march on. They dodge giant hoses and sing. They balance their lit cigarettes behind their ears so they can use both their fists.
They inch closer toward the Arc de Triomphe and, from behind police barricades, tear gas cannons pop like so many corks. The mob’s anatomy is the structure of an atom: at the center is a tight nucleus, around which orbits a wild tangle of electrons. She is one of those orbiters—she could be eighteen, but she could also be thirty; the smoke smudges out her years, adding lines where there shouldn’t be lines while stealing others away. She wears a black Chanel dress and a pair of Adidas trainers, and in her right hand she holds a half-full bottle of champagne. Beneath her silk scarf she’s smiling, but it’s a different smile from the others; hers is not wild and tenacious but rather curious. The mild surprise of someone who’s just woken up from a long summer nap. She reads some of the signs around her, and joins in some of the chants, but after a few minutes she gets restless, bored. She takes another swig of the champagne and drifts farther away.
Two people follow her—the first, a camera operator from a French news station, the second, a handsome man with full brown hair. They track her as she crosses avenue George V and stops—finally—beneath the bloodred awnings of Fouquet’s. The girl looks at the man with the camera, then up at the iconic restaurant—This, she seems to be saying to him, is the spot. Bits of marble lie at her feet, the detritus of a facade that used to stand here or on the grands boulevards, scabs picked from the face of Paris. She crouches down to touch them, and for a pure, crystalline instant, the sounds of the avenue quiet and the world calms: here is a girl, her hair in her face, running her fingers along the smooth edge of a stone. But then, on rue de Bassano, there is the wail of a siren. Close and high and loud, like the screech of bombers grazing tops of trees.
The girl stands up and whips her head around. She waits for the siren to fade, and once it does she looks down at the champagne, as if she suddenly remembers she is holding it. With her head tilted back, she finishes what’s left of the bottle. Then, she hurls it as hard as she can through the front window of Fouquet’s.
Glass shatters; a waiter screams. Her hands now freed, the girl searches her pockets for a cigarette.
The camera coaxes her into focus and, beside it, the handsome man laughs.
“Greta!” he shouts. “Give me a smile!”
At first, the man with the camera worries that his friend has made a mistake. The girl stares at them blankly, her eyes wide and green and full. But a moment later—aha, there it is: the devilish curl of her lips. The glint of her perfect, American teeth.
Morning Briefing
The phone rings three times, which for Nancy Harrison is two times too many.
“Good morning, Nancy.”
“Cate.”
“I was about to call you.”
“What the fuck is this email?”
“So, you’ve seen it. Are you sure it’s her?”
Nancy presses the phone against her shoulder and brings her laptop within an inch of her nose.
“Oh, it’s her, all right. I’d know those cheekbones anywhere.”
“How? Or, why?”
“Because they’re my cheekbones, Cate. I gave her those cheekbones.”
A cup of coffee steams on the kitchen counter. On the table behind her, a banana languishes, peeled and utterly ignored. Nancy runs both hands through her hair and turns toward the television, where the Today show plays on mute. Cataclysmic fires in California and protests in Paris. The two hosts, smiling as they make sense of a senseless world.
From the hall outside the apartment comes an abominable crash: the sound of a wall being torn down.
“Jesus, what was that?” Cate says.
“They’re installing the new trash-compacting system.”
“They’re actually doing it?”
“They’re actually doing it. Ten years I’ve spent as president of this building’s co-op board, and I’ve finally convinced these idiots that there’s a more efficient way to get rid of their tampons and chicken bones than putting them in a bag and waiting for a porter to pick them up.”
“Well, good for you, Nancy.” Cate pauses. “I thought you said Greta was taking cooking classes.”
“That’s what she told me she was doing.” Nancy rubs her palm against her cheek and stares at Greta’s face. “That little brat. I loved Fouquet’s.”
Cate clears her throat.
“The good news is that the Times more or less buried it. I mean, it’s on the home page, but you have to scroll down to see it. The other outlets … well, there’s a gallery at the Met named after your mother-in-law, Nancy—”
“My ex-mother-in-law.”
“—and this election is going to determine who controls the Senate. So, unfortunately, your daughter mugging for the camera as she destroys property in France is not exactly a story the Post is going to pass up. We need to decide how to respond.”
Nancy ignores her. She moves the cursor over Greta’s neck and Greta’s thin arms. Greta’s dusty, untied shoes.
“She’s supposed to be learning how to separate egg whites. She’s supposed to be making fucking coq au vin.”
“It was a protest over the new EU trade deal. Has Greta ever expressed interest in international economics?”
“International economics? Cate, have you met my daughter? Why the hell would she be at that?”
“I have no idea, but the internet is coming up with some theories.”
The Today show cuts to a commercial, and Nancy sips from her coffee. It’s hot and nearly scalds her throat. This was supposed to be easy, she thinks. An open Senate seat, an endorsement from the president—this was supposed to be easy. She takes a bigger sip.
“Talk to me about polls,” she says. “What are they telling us?”
“Gallup has Carmichael ahead by four points. He’s still killing us with boomers.”
“And I’ve got videos of my daughter throwing champagne bottles through windows on the other side of the Atlantic. Shit.”
She returns to the laptop and the video of Greta. Cate had sent it to her this morning, attached to an email that had as its subject line pls advise. The quality is coarse, grainy; Cate said that it ran on a French news channel six hours ago. Since then, it’s spread like wildfire. Fox, the Post, the Daily News, New York, Vogue. And despite the blurred focus, the sun’s blanching glare, there’s no doubt the woman in the picture is Greta. At first, Nancy wasn’t able to speak, she simply stared at the image, the slow drip of the coffee machine breaking the silence. Seven floors below her, Central Park unfurled itself, the tops of trees poking through a blanket of October fog. On the other side of the East River, beyond Roosevelt Island and the rooftops of Queens, a plane descended toward LaGuardia Airport. She felt exposed, and angry, and above all else guilty. Walking to the window, she recalled a night three months ago, in July. A dinner, here in this apartment, not at the small table in the kitchen but in the dining room, on the other side of the wall. Waiters in stiff white coats; Greta drunk in gold heels; Nancy, grabbing her wrist and dragging her into the foyer.
Pushing her hair out of her face, she turned back to the image on the computer’s screen. Her daughter looked fed, and healthy, her cheeks ruddy and her eyes clear. Her feet had shoes on them, and over a black dress that Nancy had bought her, she had remembered to put on a coat.
She thought, Well, at least she’s staying warm, then picked up the phone to call Cate.
Now, shutting the laptop, Nancy takes another infernal gulp of coffee and redirects her attention toward the television. The commercials have ended; the hosts are back. They are joined by a guest, a political reporter from the Washington Post. With the volume still on mute, Nancy watches the conversation unfold, her breath caught in her throat. Then, finally, it happens. The screen cuts to the same video that Nancy has spent the last hour staring at: Greta the Destroyer; Greta with champagne; Greta, now broadcast live for 4.5 million people to see.
“Goddamn it,” she says.
The sun tears through clouds in the sky above New York.
Nancy turns off the television and throws its controller on the floor.
“Cate,” she says. “I’ve got to go.”
“Where are you going?”
“Downtown. I need to talk to my son.”
“Why?”
“Because I have to tell him he’s flying to Paris.”
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