A Seahorse Year

"You know what I keep thinking? How a family becomes a family when it falls apart. I feel like we know who we are to one another now." says Nan to her partner Marina and to Hal, her son's gay father, at the beginning of Stacey d'Erasmo's "A Seahorse Year". Nan and Hal live in San Francisco and, although they live in separate houses, they share equally the parenting responsibility of Christopher, their teenage son. The falling apart that Nan is talking about is a consequence of Christopher's disappearance. However, neither Nan nor Hal are really prepared for the discovery that Christopher running away is a consequence of his schizophrenia, and that their son has become a stranger to them. Tamara, Christopher's girlfriend is apparently the only one that is able to understand him: "What Tamara honors in Christopher is that he is a person of two elements, earth and water. He can exist in either one, like an otter--he believes that. Or, he seems to believe it with what Tamara has come to think of as his other mind, his shadow mind. [...] he also lives in two elements at once: the now and the possible. The possible hums closer to him than it does to most people. He's willing to listen to its special sound." But even Tamara ultimately will not be able to reach him. This is a character-driven book and, through her beautiful prose and the use of narrative using five different points of view, Stacey D`Erasmo lets us know intimately the insecurities and confusion lived by the characters, how they relate to each other and how they cope with the family dysfunction. The book is full of allegories especially through all the imagery of trees, sea and sea creatures that permeates it. For example, Marina, who is betraying Nan with a younger woman, is a painter who obsessively paints trees. Nan has planted a beautiful garden with a tree, that symbolizes for Marina her love for Nan the nurturer. Shiloh, Marina's lover, paints Marina as a tree. And it is trees that Christopher and Tamara seek as refuge when they run away. The sea and sea creatures, symbolize Christopher's love of sea things but also his beauty, frailty and illness: "Scotch-taped to the upper frame of a window are three dried seahorses, a gift from Christopher: one, two, three little rocking creatures with fixed rococo stares". As an underlying theme in the book there is also the portrayal of the changes in the city of San Francisco in the post dot com era, from a city of rebellion and free love, to a city of bourgeois where money is what matters. An also important theme in the book is how an apparent modern family can ultimately behave like a traditional family. Very highly recommended.

I am so sick of reading the same lesbian novels over and over again. Coming out stories. Predictable romances. So it was really nice to read a lesbian book that was about something other than *being a lesbian*. There were good complex characters and enough plot to keep me turning the pages. Really nice visual images too, done in a way that didn't annoy or slow things down too much. All in all a satisfying read!

This is the kind of book that comes along so infrequently--a truly insightful, empathic, lovingly crafted look at the real stuff of life: relationships, identity, culture, our place in the world... all that. D'erasmo's voice struck me as utterly transparent. Although I admired her use of language from time to time, I never had the feeling I was being pushed or prodded along in my thinking, only that I was discovering this peculiarly vivid (and vividly peculiar) little nexus of individuals as they were--as they are, even, because they are still alive for me. It's not uplifting, or side-splittingly funny, but if you read novels for all those other reasons that many of us do and can't articulate, this is a tremendously worthwhile book.

Set in a trendy, latte drinking enclave of San Francisco, A Seahorse Year is an absolutely beautifully written novel that tackles the subject of mental illness from a pretty unique point of view. By portraying a strikingly contemporary family - two lesbian mums and a gay dad - D'Erasmo has probably single handedly discounted many of the myths associated with gay and lesbian parenting. If nothing else, A Seahorse Year indomitably shows that gay and lesbian parents are really not that different from straight parents. The subject of teenage mental illness is the focus of this story with the narrative centering around five main characters. Christopher, Nan and Hal's teenage son is mentally ill and has recently gone missing. Nan and Hal are both gay and live separately, but are unequivocally devoted to Chris, each sharing parental responsibility. Nan's longtime partner, Marina, has been having an affair with Shiloh, a younger woman and is unable to break away from Shiloh but also unable to stay with her. Hal meets Dan and Dan forces Hal to come to terms with a middle age that seems miles away from his promiscuous past as a member of the glam-rock band Venus Flytrap. Neither parent is prepared for the discovery that Christopher has developed an acute case of schizophrenia. The only person who seems to understand Christopher is his classmate and girlfriend, Tamara, but even this unique rapport - via the music of PJ Harvey - does not offer shortcuts to treatment and healing. The fragile family must find ways to cope, but each member encounters many stretches of solitude - told via internal monologue - between sporadic moments of connection. Nan feels as though she's spent her whole life "crashing into dark forests after love. She alone has done the questing and the tracking." And as the story goes on, she realizes that Christopher is endurably her life and her passion. Hal has a conservative streak and is devoted to his profession but he questions his success as a father, while also wondering about his ability to settle down with a man such as Dan. Marina is relegated to the periphery of the group - "an unhappy, bored and cruddy person," unable to help Chris or communicate with Nan, she seeks solace in the arms of Shiloh. Chris is isolated with his illness, "living in two elements at once: the now and the possible." At first glance, A Seahorse Year may seem steeped in melodramatics, but in reality, the novel has a psychological complexity and a lyrical beauty, which yields no easy answers on the questions of love and family dysfunction. There's also the deeper theme of the transformation of the counterculture: San Francisco, the city of free love becomes the city of the bourgeois as parents Hal and Nan act and react to Chris's illness just like a conventional married straight couple. D'Erasmo alternatively dips into the rich inner lives of the five characters, and, at times, this causes the narrative to become a little cluttered. But generally,

I'll admit that I had no intention of reading this book at the onset. I met the author after she gave a rather mousy-voiced reading of this book at an independent bookstore, and after speaking with her (I have a collection of signed books), I felt compelled by her lovely personality and the book's cover to buy it -- a purchase that even overdrew my bank account! The premise: an unorthodox family of a lesbian mom, gay father, with their respective lovers and their shared adolescent son (really not so abnormal for San Fran?) discover that the son, Christopher, is in the initial stages of mental illness. After hearing this set-up, I was a bit turned off. As a lover of the simplicity of a good story, I found the premise a bit overblown. And after reading the first hundred pages or so, I was on the brink of giving up on the author's development of the story. I really hated phrases that she used such as "Christopher always thought..." or "Nan always believed..." to characterize the main players in her book. That waned, understandably, as the story progessed, and I found myself wrapped up in a gripping story of the limits and bounds of love within a family. In essence, the plot and course of events in this book are inconsequestial. What is important is that Stacey D'Erasmo has a knack for created images that give the reader pause, small details that leave a lump in your throut or that just linger and entice you to turn the page. An overdrawall fee well spent.