On Escape

When you need to get the hell out of your own head and stop worrying about the state of the world

Joshua Jackson and I go way back. We met back in my mid-tweens, when I still went to the movies with my mother, and she took me to see The Mighty Ducks. She had a soft spot for Emilio Estevez and his preference for the non-Anglicized version of his family name¹. I was a girl with an affinity for sports movies and underdogs. We both came away satisfied. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a sweet little flick about an unscrupulous yuppie lawyer in need of reform, which comes at the hand of a pee wee hockey team made up of the usual line up of child misfit archetypes:

• The loudmouth

• The nice one

• The funny one

• The rich one

• The chubby one

• The tough one who inexplicably wears a black leather jacket with chains on it even though he’s, maybe, 10

• A few extras to fill out the group visually and demographically

• And the girl²

Josh played the nice one, Charlie Conway. Without a doubt, he is the heart of the movie: a sensitive son of a single mom, who, with Charlie’s help, becomes Emilio’s romantic interest. He is sweet and awkward, does the right thing and just wants to be loved. Charlie is a predecessor, of sorts, to the nice guy. You know the one. He was a staple of 1990s pop culture and followed (haunted?) women my age for years. Ross Geller? Charlie kinda set us up for him. In fact, Mr. Jackson would go on to put another meaningful and transitional stamp on the nice guy trope less than a decade later with Dawson’s Creek³.

---

Charlie Conway brought me to Josh. Pacey Witter is why I stayed, not just at the creek, but with Josh. I have stayed no matter the format, genre or age. Through early tweendom movies, high school melodrama, college scream-fests, network sci-fi, streaming peak TV, and now approaching middle age and whatever mess AI will make of storytelling, Josh remains reliably entertaining and watchable, ready to provide the escape the moment calls for.

Case in point: Doctor Odyssey, a new TV show by Ryan Murphy in which Josh plays the title character, the head of a medical team on a luxury cruise ship. It’s bonkers. Truly, hilariously bonkers. It is the kind of TV for which the word “bonkers” was coined. And to be clear, I mean that Doctor Odyssey is bonkers in the best, most wonderful way possible. Do the medical emergencies make any sense? Do any other coworkers fraternize this inappropriately? Is this the first show with a canon throuple? How can this many episodes have happened without a norovirus outbreak on the ship? Does any of this matter? No. And that’s the point. Doctor Odyssey is an escape procedural. Every week, there is a new set of guests with a new set of issues, a new set of lessons to learn (some of them, surprisingly affecting), and a new dose of comedic relief to provide. And relief, again, is the operative word. The show isn’t trying to be realistic or illuminating. It’s trying to entertain you, make you laugh, make you feel something other than the oppressive, existential dread of having to live through another four years of a certain president. It is exactly what the doctor (ahem) ordered.

What this has to do with books

Coincidentally, as Doctor Odyssey was worming its way into my heart this fall, another Joshua Jackson performance fell into my lap: Canadian Boyfriend. Romance author Jenny Holiday⁴ wrote this trifle of a story about a dance instructor grappling with anxiety and an NHL-playing widower from north of the border. Josh, of Disney hockey fame, as noted above, and hailing from Vancouver, British Columbia, was not just the perfect choice to read this audiobook. He had to have been the only choice. Just as the book alternates from the two main characters’ perspectives, Josh and a professional audiobook actress tag-team the narration. Their work is tremendous, a friggin’ delight to listen to.

Here’s the review I posted on Goodreads/The Storygraph:

I listened to this audiobook for one reason, and one reason only: Joshua Jackson is the voice of the Canadian Boyfriend. I have been a fan of his for decades at this point, and previously joked that I'd enjoy hearing him read the phonebook. Confirmed. His voice and performance are pitch perfect. (His counterpart does a fine job too.) The story itself is surprisingly moving: A young dance teacher is trying to piece together an adulthood after an anxiety-laden childhood at the hand of an emotionally abusive mother when she meets a widowed NHL player, a Canadian she had a chance encounter with as a teen once (she remembers but doesn't tell him), and ends up helping him and his daughter emerge from their grief. The slow burn is sweet and paced perfectly for most of the book, but the secret that hovers over the narrative comes out in a whimper. The ending feels rushed and doesn't quite live up to the build up. None of that matters though because Josh's voice will hypnotize you into a pile of goo.

Seriously, though, if things don’t work out for Josh on Doctor Odyssey, he has a future as an audiobook narrator.

Anyhoo, given the 2024 presidential election results, escapism has been on my mind.

I have written before about needing books for salvation. In fact, I wrote about it in the very context of a trump presidency⁵. But back then, I was thinking about the pleasure I get from reading in general. Escapism is reading books specifically meant to take you away. They lighten your load, brighten your mind even if just for a brief moment. They allow you to turn off your stresses and have fun. Romance, obviously, provides escape. Books like Canadian Boyfriend come with built-in happy endings. Their intention not being surprise, but comfort. What matters is the journey of people falling in love, finding themselves, finding peace with their circumstances because they are journeys humans take everyday.

Humor also offers escape—what better salve is there in this dark world, after all, than laughter. Two books that made me laugh to the point of tears this year are Zero Stars, Would Not Recommend by M.J. Wassmer and Yearbook by Seth Rogen. The former is about what happens when a regular guy who just wants to go on vacation with his girlfriend is forced to deal with the apocalypse. The latter is a collection of essays more than a true memoir, I would say, and deals in some difficult topics, but framed by the trademark weed-informed goofball humor that made Rogen famous. Another book by a comedian that will have you in stitches is Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, which I recommend if you’re in search of reading/listening material that will make you think and offer you a good time. I also find that nonfiction about the sciences, very far removed from what I read and think about every day, offers escape by pulling me into a deep dive that opens my mind in new ways. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which I read earlier this year, fits that bill.

What do you read to escape, friends?

Reading to learn, to challenge ourselves, to grow emotionally, to think critically—all of that is deeply important. But sometimes we need to escape. To give ourselves time to breathe, reset, remind ourselves that we’re human and that to thrive we have to have fun. And we’re here to thrive, not just survive. Our joy is resistance. Leaving our burdens and stresses at the door doesn’t make them go away, but it strengthens us so we may continue to take them on, continue to fight the good fight. And the fight remains good, which means that momentary escape for the sake of self-preservation remains deeply important. Racism, sexism, xenophobia and their agents want us to stay down for the count. But we’re going to keep fighting, and to their utter irritation, we’re going to have fun—watching silly shows and reading books that give us escape—on the way to liberation.

---

Book Bites

• What I am reading right now: A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

• What you need to know about the book: Its a novel that should have been sold as a series of loosely related short stories, which is what it is.

• What you need to know about me: I have come to dislike novels that jump around in time.⁶

• What I am listening to right now: I haven’t gotten into another audiobook since finishing This Great Hemisphere by Mateo Askaripour, which I had mixed feelings about.

• What you need to know about the audio book: It is “speculative” fiction that takes place in an imagined future in which those who used to have black skin are now invisible. Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man would likely be an interesting companion piece.

• What you need to know about me: I haven’t read a speculative novel I particularly loved yet, but I picked this one up because I love Askariapour’s writing, and that remains true.

What My Kids Are Reading Right Now

• The 13-year-old is reading the Inheritance Games series by Lynn Barnes, which I know little about beyond the premise, which is that a billionaire dies and leaves everything to a random teenage girl who now has to contend with the man’s disinherited family.

• The 10-year-old just finished Holes by Louis Sachar, which she says I must read, and just started The Wild Robot by Peter Brown, which she was drawn to because she liked the book’s illustrations.

Book Reviews and Recommendations

Here are books that offered me escape:

• Zero Stars, Do Not Recommend by MJ Wassmer: - This fun treat of a novel is a solid contribution to the apocalyptic humor fiction genre—a niche that I wouldn't have put a name to before now but that also includes such personal favorites as Seth Rogen's This Is the End and Zombieland with Woody Harrelson. The title came up on Libby when I was looking for audiobooks that were available immediately, and after laughing out loud several times within the first ten minutes, I decided to keep listening. Beyond the topical humor, I was delighted to discover some thoughtful commentary on class, masculinity, predatory Christianity and the unadulterated evil of influencer feminism. The protagonist, Dan Foster, is an underachieving oaf who hides his vulnerability behind quips and sarcasm. The sun explodes while he's on a tropical vacation, resulting in a somewhat predictable but well-paced story of survival when the guests at the resort try to stay alive and make it home. I'd recommend with the caveat that you shouldn't take it too seriously, except the laughs are wrapped in surprisingly sincere moments in which you'll find yourself thinking about what it all means. 

• Yearbook by Seth Rogen - This might be the funniest book you ever listen to—and please do listen because I don’t know that the humor of Seth Rogen’s collection of memories contained herein will be as funny off the page as it was coming from him, his family and his collection of very funny friends. Seriously, the narration and reenactments of life, growing up as an awkward young Jewish man in Canada and later trying and then making it in Hollywood are a fucking delight. Many stories are about drugs so the squeamish should bear that in mind.

  Rogen’s humor in so far as his movies and TV roles are concerned may not be for everyone, but here he comes off as relatable, empathetic and a guy who would be fun to get high with, if that’s your thing. There are moments when some of the anecdotes feel like rehearsed bits of stand up rather than insightful self-reflection, but when he hits the right note (mostly the stories of his childhood), boy does he. Either way, you will laugh until you cry.

• A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - Making my way through this book, I sometimes wondered whether Bryson considered "500 Years of Bored Aristocrats" as a potential title. So much of this entertaining and informative recap of scientific study across most of human history focuses on the work of eccentric European men who had the right amount of time and money, and in some key cases, the necessary lack of ethics to pursue an understanding of the mysteries of the world. At times, I wished that Bryson's research had gone a bit further afield from Western history and perspectives. He does acknowledge, when it bears acknowledging, that the scientific academy was built by brilliant men whose discoveries sometimes caused a great deal of harm to the planet and its inhabitants, humans and otherwise. He also notes, when the occasional woman scientist of past centuries is mentioned, the significant barriers that their male peers put in front of them.

  Bryson, as further evidenced by this effort, is an excellent synthesizer of complicated information. It was a hoot to read certain sections in light of more recent discoveries and events. Namely, the fate of Pluto as a non-planet and the pandemic that pre-2020 epidemiologists knew was possible. It's fair to say that my quibbles are really just a desire to read an altogether different kind of book. Despite that, I come back to Bryson because I love great writing, and he always manages that.

• Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah - Celebrity memoirs are, generally speaking, not good books. Trevor Noah, however, has a few things working for him: he is a deft storyteller, he is funny, he has led a genuinely interesting life, he grew up in a country (South Africa) in which he very existence as a mixed race person marked him as an outsider, and most importantly, he has the emotional intelligence to not merely recount the adventures of his youth but to critique them and consider how they shaped him. There is a lot of humor in this book, but don’t come if you’re looking for superficial comedy. There are no anecdotes here about working at the Y for extra cash between open mic nights and improv classes. You will find stories about entrenched racism, domestic violence, poverty and the mountain of hardship that people of color must overcome not to succeed but merely to survive. You will laugh, but you may also cry. Reading this knowing that the kid in the story is a globally recognized artist is a bit of a miracle, but reading it you will understand what treasure Noah is (if you didn’t already) and you will be grateful his mom threw him out of the moving bus. Yeah, just read the book.

1. The Anglicized version being Sheen, as in Martin and Charlie.

2. Ah, male-centered tokenism

3. An aside: “The nice guy” was a product of the 1980s phenomenon whereby a dowdy girl found herself attracted to a hot popular guy who never noticed her, overlooking a male best friend in the process—a nice guy who was unfailingly, attainably, always right there. The woman-centered read on choosing the nice guy is that we deserve to be with someone who knows us and gets us and for whom we don’t have to undergo a makeover montage. The male-centered take is that the nice guy deserves the win. That perspective (that it’s about the guy winning, rather than the woman choosing), alas, took over rom-coms in the 21st century and got mired in toxic masculinity. As a result, the world noticed that the “nice” part was sometimes a bit of an act.

When I say the nice guy trope has haunted women “my age,” I mean that special class of Gen X ladies who were in the 10-13 age range in 1992, when The Mighty Ducks was released, two years before Friends premiered. I happen to be Josh’s almost exact age, only off by a single month.

Dawson’s Creek ran from 1998 to 2003, and Friends from 1994 to 2004. Ross and Rachel peaked right around the same time that the world was getting to know Dawson and Joey, and their third wheel, Pacey. Ross we rooted for because he’d been pining for Rachel for so long. He was a holdover of the 1980s wallflower on the sidelines who “deserved” the girl. Pacey, on the other hand, wasn’t even supposed to be a romantic interest for his show’s female lead, but he ended up earning the endgame relationship over the title character. Kevin Williamson, the show’s creator, said he rewrote the Dawson’s Creek series finale for a Joey/Pacey ending after the original draft, one with the Dawson/Joey ending he had intended, didn’t feel right. Doing so, he kinda upended romantic endings of the period. Ross’ finale? Realizing he still loves Rachel and asking her to give up her Paris job to stay in New York with him. Pacey’s? Realizing he still loves Joey and telling her she’s no longer beholden to him or their history and free to be happy with whomever she wants because her happiness is what matters most to him. Both were presented as romantic ovations at the time, but to me, they are not the same.

4. What a great name for a romance novelist.

5. I won’t capitalize the name of a person I have no respect for.

6. This feels like an old person take so . . . get off my lawn!