Private Way

January 31, 2022
The frustrating latest from Randolph (Leaving the Pink House) focuses on a young internet maven who is silenced by cyberbullies. Vivi Marx flees her comfortable life in the Echo Park neighborhood of L.A., turning her back on her company and best friend, to spend a year offline in Lincoln, Neb., a place that holds happy memories of her late grandmother. She rents a small cottage and tries to come to terms with her fears, boredom, and lack of direction. Vivi starts reading old Willa Cather novels that had been left in her cottage, then befriends a man named Ivan, unbelievably a descendant of a woman Cather wrote about. Another strange detail involves the suggestion that the cottage is haunted by the ghost of a gardener who previously lived there. Along the way, Vivi learns how to connect with people in real life, beginning with a neighboring family, and bonds with an abused dog named Bill. Though the physical descriptions of Nebraska are well wrought and there are some poignant emotional moments, there are too many unresolved plot points (is there a ghost? What about the dog?). In the end, this feels unconvincing.