Chakras, qi and chaos in a town near you
Debra Galant takes aim at the greener-than-thou
By TaRESSA STOVAL
Debra Galant, fondly known as the reigning diva of the Baristanet blog, is sporting a second crown: New Jersey's First Lady of Suburban Satire. However, in the spirit of our historical presidential race, I hereby move that we upgrade that to New Jersey's Queen of Suburban Satire.
In her second novel, "Fear and Yoga in New Jersey" (St. Martin's Press, 2008), Galant trains her talented eye on Nina, a stressed-out yoga instructor who is having a Feng Shui crisis in her newly opened studio in the area popularly known as Upper Montclair.
Thought she doesn't name our fair town in "Fear and Yoga," Galant admitted that "in my mind it's really Montclair. I was debating whether or not to call it Montclair, but I decided in the end not to," she said.
The book deftly satirizes the local culture, which Galant describes as being rich with "lots of yoga, lots of sushi, lots of Thai, lots of Priuses. We like scheduled zen, scheduled relaxation," she said. "Let's put our oneness to the universe into an hour-and-a-half session that we can put into our schedule."
While her protagonist, Nina, who was raised Jewish, prefers putting her faith in the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui, Nina's teen son Adam is conconting a scheme to reconnect with his roots with less-than-spiritual motives. And Nina's husband, Micahel, is coping with having been outsourced at the meteorologist at Newark International Airport.
The inspiration for Nina comes from "several people, none of whom are yoga teachers, but they're people who are sort of sanctimonious liberals who are greener than thou. Their liberal credentials are better than yours and they're smug about it," Galant said.
"I think I record the stream of consciousness of the modern woman, which includes a lot of stuff we would be really embarrassed to have other people know we're talking about," Galant said.
Her own teen son, a stand-up comic, provides inspiration and guidance for his mom's writing humor. "He's very funny and helped with the character of Adam," she said.
As Galant's adventures in fiction grow, they move closer to her own life. "In my first novel, 'Rattled,' I was making fun of the nouveau riche in the big McMansions," she said. "In this book, I was making fun of people who were much closer to me and much more similar to me."
