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Fiction. Short Stories. HTML: Fourteen-year-old Trisha Driscoll is a hungry machine, taking in her hometown of Mogsfield, Massachusetts—a place that has shamelessly surrendered to neon signs, theme restaurants, and cookie-cutter chain stores. Cynical but naive, Trisha observes the disappointing world from the ignored perspective of a teenager: creepy guys, the unfathomable sadness of the elderly, illegal tattoos, and the wild kingdom of mall culture. After being hired and abruptly fired from the most popular shop at the absurd and kaleidoscopic Square One Mall, Trisha finds herself linked up with a chain-smoking, physically stunted mall rat named Rose, and her life shifts into manic overdrive. A whirlwind exploration of poverty and dropouts, Rose of No Man’s Land is the world according to Trisha—a furious love story between two weirdo girls, brimming with snarky observations and soulful wonderings on the dazzle-flash emptiness of contemporary culture. about THE AUTHOR Michelle Tea lives in San Francisco, where she is beloved for her writing, her spoken word, and her innovative arts organization that brought the world Sister Spit. Her published books include Rent Girl, The Chelsea Whistle, and Valencia. She loves—like, really loves—beauty products. from THE AUTHOR I grew up on the North Shore of Massachusetts. Last year I visited, grabbed a Slush at Richie’s King of Slush on Revere Beach Parkway. Cruised Route One in Saugus, our little Las Vegas New England, and pulled into a giant bookstore and shuffled around. I peeked around for The Chelsea Whistle, which sticks a female skewer through my nearby hometown. It wasn’t there. I felt hurt. What’s the point of writing if not to find your book splayed out on the “local writers” table in your hometown bookstore? I know Saugus isn’t my hometown, but it’s close enough. Plus, Chelsea doesn’t have any bookstores. I thought, what do I have to do, write a book about Saugus? Fine, then. Next stop was the Square One Mall, the place I would bring my adolescent holiday money the day after Christmas. Square One nowadays is glitzier than ever. Neon and fluorescence and all the clothes so bright and clutching at me through the glass windows. Teenaged girls everywhere in giant schools, jabbering in that North Shore accent. I felt giddy. Here’s my book..… (more)
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This is sort of a rough book to review without giving too much away. The first half had me laughing out loud and shaking my head at Trisha's attitude and the way that she describes the things around her; her narrative voice is fantastic. It's very similar to Tea's style in her other books, but Trisha does feel like her own character rather than a stand-in for Michelle Tea. The second half of this had me holding my breath hoping that nothing too terribly horrible was going to happen. I did really, really like it, though.
Anyway the narrative begins quietly enough, and at first I was put off by what I took to be a sort of vanillaness and commercialism - the prose is utterly polished and seamless - not what I expected. But it turns out that she can really write, and before I knew it I was swept up into the world of her 15 year old narrator, Trisha. The last two thirds of the novel flow beautifully and I read it in one sitting, the pages seemingly flipping themselves, as Trisha ventures away from her dysfunctional home, where she had build a cave in her bedroom, detached from life, dead inside or maybe just waiting to be reborn. Reading it I would be struck here and there suddenly by sharp memories of my own misspent youth, smoking stolen cigarettes behind the local gas station, skipping school to smoke a joint in the backseat of Erin's beat up Buick, the exhilarating confusion and of initial sexual encounters. It's a stunningly beautiful little coming of age story, one where, like in the real lives of genuinely thinking and feeling people (maybe all people) there are no resolutions, grand epiphanies, no final reaching of a stable plain where life is smooth sailing from here on. Definitely a must, if quick, read.
Tea also examines the effects of class differences, yet veils her more serious themes with an entertaining plot and fast-moving story. Just when the story seems to become predictable, a new twist takes the characters in new directions.
Rose of No Man's Land takes a simple casts of people and explores their unique perspectives, forming a novel that turns itself into an introspective, yet entertaining, reading experience.