VISIONS OF JOHANNA

In this novel, a music critic remembers a life-changing romance with a whimsical artist.

It’s the 1980s, and Matthew Dominico has just been evicted from his Boston apartment. Returning to his childhood home and old-school Italian neighborhood is the only option but far from ideal—though Matt’s father has died, his widowed mother isn’t open about anything unrelated to food. To escape the long-repressed emotions of his youth, Matt turns to his side gig as a music critic and meets a woman who will change his life. Johanna Beaumont is a fellow Bob Dylan fan and gifted visual artist who left behind her hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin—and her marriage to a dentist named Robbie—to pursue her dreams. Johanna is beautiful and free-spirited, encouraging Matt to process memories of his often tragic past, and integrating him into her bohemian life in New York City. The couple connect not only in their love for music, but in a passion for art and life as well. Johanna and Matt’s romance is deep and intense, but the distance between Boston (where he has a solid job working with medical records) and the Big Apple presents many challenges. And after Johanna finally takes a full-time job herself in the cutthroat corporate world, Matt worries that her dwindling mental health may mean the end of their affair, and a whole lot more. Sarno, an award-winning nonfiction author, literature professor, and journalist, paints an evocative portrait of New York and Boston in the ’80s, with nods to an eclectic group of musicians ranging from Dylan and Joan Jett to Debbie Gibson. The details of Matt’s backstory, which include the untimely death of a female friend when both were just teenagers, are rich and intriguing, though sometimes superfluous to the main tale of Johanna and the protagonist’s relationship. The character of Johanna has the opposite problem. Except in a few details about her past, she comes off as more of a dream girl archetype—gorgeous, wild, and unpredictable, with moods that change on a dime—than a fully realized person.

A vivid but meandering love story.