Life Lessons from Mona Simpson’s Casebook

It all begins innocently enough: wanting to know more about a popular TV show being discussed at school, Miles Adler-Hart starts eavesdropping on his mother. What he discovers, though, is more than he bargained for—his parents’ marriage is unraveling, and suddenly his world is turned upside down. Mona Simpson’s fascinating novel explores the unique perspective of her narrator: Miles recounts his story from a child’s point of view but with all the benefits—and burdens—of a grown-up’s hindsight. The result is not just an insightful exploration of youth but of lessons learned along the path to adulthood. Here, we share a few of Casebook’s bittersweet revelations:

“It took discipline not to listen! It felt virtuous and, like everything virtuous, hard.”

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“I was just beginning to understand that we were all connected on something like a teeter-totter, and our up depended on someone else’s down.”

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“Everyone had secrets; I understood now that I did. With that one revelation, the world multiplied.”

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“ ‘Hope for happiness is happiness.’ ”

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“ ‘That’s what you do. You find the best angle. You crop. You edit. That’s not cheating. That’s love.’ ”