Joani Elliott’s “The Audacity of Sara Grayson” is Poignant, Playful and Perceptive

The Audacity of Sara Grayson

“Audacity,” writes Sara’s mother from the grave. “A word with superb meaning and long overlooked as a girl’s name.” And something that Sara Grayson is pretty sure she does not have.

Things happen quickly in Joani Elliott’s debut novel The Audacity of Sara Grayson (Post Hill Press). Sara wanders through the crowd at her mother’s gala, picking at chocolates and ruminating about her therapist’s misplaced semicolons. This is not Sara’s first movie premier celebration: her mother is Cassandra Bond, author of a much-beloved series of books, and Cassandra is the center of attention in a red Versace gown. Movie stars and other celebrities mingle with guests.

Sara, on the other hand, is stuck in the bathroom with her sister Anna-Katherine, trying to extract a piece of shrimp tail from the front of her dress and defending her life choices. “Find some … ambition,” Anna-Kath urges.

A DISARMING DYING WISH 

But Sara is doing what she thinks is the best she can, teaching freshman English at the local college and writing “profound and inspirational” copy for a second-rate greeting card company. They especially like her cancer cards.

However, Sara’s world is about to be rocked. First, ironically, her mother collapses onstage, a result of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Weeks later, she succumbs. 

Still reeling from the unexpected loss, Sara learns that the much anticipated Book Five of the Ellery Dawson series has not been written and her mother’s dying wish is that she, Sara, write it.

Sara can’t see the irony or humor, but Ms. Elliott makes sure her readers do. Her writing is fresh and engaging; the humor is light. The characters — agents, editors,  lawyers, publishers — are familiar personalities in Sara’s world, and she must now establish relationships with them if she is to survive.

She can’t get away from them — or from herself. She tries her best to get out of the quandary she finds herself in, but painted into a metaphorical corner, she accepts the job. It’s mostly to get back at Jane Harnois, head of the publishing company who is hoping for Sara to fail.

MORE TO THIS MESSY LIFE THAN MEETS THE EYE

There’s more to Sara’s messy life: among other things, there’s the emptiness after her husband left her, the blow to her confidence when her own novel was soundly criticized (ten pages’ worth!), mysteries in her mother’s will, an unexpected love interest, and of course, the challenge of completing something her famous mother has started and three million fans are waiting for.

 Sara’s determined, but too often hesitant. She writes and deletes and then shreds pages and pages until her shredder gives up in a waft of smoke. Her ex-husband turns up; she suspects infidelity, plagiarism, and blackmail lurk in her mother’s past. “You seem rather unhinged,” her mother’s editor tells her gently.

Sara, unhinged. The Audacity of Sara Grayson is a story of a woman’s grit in spite of herself. With a novelist’s deft hand, Elliott leaves a tiny stone unturned at the end, preparing her fans for a sequel.