Quick Take
- Narration: Helen Laser captures both Marilyn’s sharp sarcasm and her growing vulnerability, and gives Ada the kind of unapologetic authority the character deserves.
- Themes: Women’s autonomy in 1960s America, education that arrives sideways, chosen versus expected lives
- Mood: Warm and funny with real emotional substance underneath
- Verdict: A historically grounded coming-of-age story that earns its title’s quiet promise, carried by two of the most memorable women I have listened to this year.
There is a specific kind of fiction that uses historical setting not as atmosphere but as argument, and Don’t Forget to Write is that kind of novel. Sara Goodman Confino is working in 1960, a year before JFK wins the presidency, and she is not there for nostalgia. She is there to show exactly how constrained the options were for a twenty-year-old Jewish woman from a respectable New York family, and to show what it looked like when those constraints broke against a personality large enough to refuse them. The novel was named an Audible Best Fiction Audiobook of 2023, and that selection feels accurate rather than promotional.
I listened to this one on a Sunday evening after spending most of the day reading literary criticism, and the shift was both deliberate and exactly right. Don’t Forget to Write is what I would call a serious entertainment, a novel that takes its protagonist’s interior life and historical moment seriously while remaining genuinely funny for long stretches. One reviewer wrote that they laughed, they cried, and they enjoyed it very much. That sequence captures the tonal range more precisely than any single descriptor would.
Ada Herself
The great achievement of this novel is Ada. Marilyn’s great-aunt, the Philadelphia matchmaker with the platinum-blonde hair, the Hermes scarf, the Cadillac convertible, and the set of private rules she follows strictly but on her own terms, is one of those secondary characters who arrives and immediately destabilizes the hierarchy of the story. The novel is technically Marilyn’s coming-of-age, but it is Ada’s philosophy that gives it coherence and its best moments. One reviewer wrote that Ada is so unforgettable and unpredictable that she lives even after her funeral, which is exactly right. Confino has written a woman who is sixty years ahead of her era while being completely of her era, a difficult balance to maintain across a novel’s length without slipping into anachronism.
The novel’s central lesson, that Marilyn does not have to settle, arrives through Ada’s example rather than through Ada’s instruction. Confino is wise enough to know that Ada would never lecture a niece about female independence. She would demonstrate it from the driver’s seat of a Cadillac convertible at seventy miles an hour, while navigating a matchmaking assignment at the Jersey shore. That structural choice, showing rather than telling through a character whose entire life is the argument, is what gives the novel its staying power beyond the specifics of 1960.
Helen Laser’s Work with Two Generations
The narration task here is significant: Helen Laser needs to give convincing, distinct voices to a twenty-year-old woman who is still becoming herself and a seventy-something woman who has been completely herself for decades. Laser handles both with real precision. Marilyn’s voice carries the right combination of self-consciousness and rising confidence, a person learning to speak at the same time she is learning what to say. Ada’s voice is sharper, drier, completely self-possessed. There is no performance anxiety in how Laser reads Ada. The character has already answered every question the world might pose to her. At nine hours and two minutes, this is a comfortable listening length for the content, and Laser sustains the tonal shifts between comedy and genuine feeling without losing either register.
The Incident That Starts It All and What It Reveals
Confino opens the novel with a scene reviewers describe as having made them howl with laughter: Marilyn caught making out with the rabbi’s son in front of the congregation. That setup is doing several things simultaneously. It establishes Marilyn’s particular brand of disaster, which is not stupidity but the collision of real desire with social performance. It also sets up the core conflict, not between Marilyn and Mark, but between Marilyn’s actual self and the self her family needs her to perform. The threat of disinheritance and the loss of college are real stakes in 1960 for a young Jewish woman, and Confino never lets them become mere plot mechanics. The summer with Ada becomes the space where those two selves have to negotiate, and Confino gives that negotiation real time and specificity rather than resolving it with a single epiphany or romantic solution.
Who Should Listen and Who Should Skip
This is a confident recommendation for listeners who enjoy historical fiction that centers women’s interiority, and for fans of early Nora Ephron, Maria Semple, or Meg Wolitzer in their literary sensibility. The humor is sharp rather than broad, the historical detail is specific rather than atmospheric, and the ending resists easy comfort while remaining emotionally satisfying. The free audiobook is an excellent way to discover Confino’s work if you have not already found her through her earlier novel She’s Up to No Good.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this novel specifically about Jewish American life in the 1960s, and does that require prior cultural knowledge?
The Jewish American context is central and specific, from the matchmaking profession to the family dynamics to the social codes around reputation and marriage. No prior knowledge is required to follow or enjoy the novel, but readers who share that cultural background report an additional layer of recognition and resonance.
How does Ada function as a character, and does she remain present throughout the novel?
Ada is present for most of the novel and is arguably its true center of gravity. She is introduced fully in the first act and remains a constant, unpredictable, shaping presence throughout the summer. One reviewer described her as living even after her funeral, which captures how thoroughly Confino has rendered her.
Does the novel sentimentalize the 1960s or engage honestly with the era’s limitations for women?
It engages honestly. Confino is not nostalgic about the period. The constraints on Marilyn’s choices, including the threat of disinheritance, the social cost of the opening incident, and the expectation that she will marry and stop thinking about education, are presented as real and costly rather than colorful period detail.
Is the audio format particularly well suited to this book, or would reading work just as well?
The audio format benefits the novel significantly. Helen Laser’s differentiation between Marilyn’s developing voice and Ada’s complete self-possession makes the generational contrast more immediate. The comedic scenes, including the congregational incident, also land with particular pleasure in audio form.
