Tea

At first, "Tea" did not hook me like so many other stories have. I felt that it was vague and stale, D'Erasmo only partially achieving the artistic storyline that was obviously being attempted. However, by the time I reached the second section, "Afternoon," I could not set the book down. What at first had seemed mundane and ordinary had taken on a new shape. I began to realize that the beauty of D'Erasmo's story was in its simplicity. An unexpected intimacy with Isabel, the main character, had been established, and I was eager to read along, to watch her discover life and loss. In no way was Isabel perfect. She was confused and idiosyncratic -- an inquistive, introspective, ordinary child who grew to be a resiliant, astute, yet ordinary twenty-something with a passionate will to survive. The beauty of D'Erasmo's writing comes through the simplicity it conveys, through both form and content. The words are raw, yet powerful.

How many have fled suburbia for "the big city" in hopes of achieving self-actualization and fulfilling artistic dreams? Once there, they may realize that although they've left family home behind much of the past has journeyed with them. Such is the case with Isabel Gold, the memorable protagonist of Tea, an impressive first novel by book reviewer and editor Stacey D'Erasmo. Emotionally complex and arrestingly candid, Tea heralds the debut of a writer with a gift for original imagery and perceptive reading of the human heart. With a nod to middle America in the 1970s Tea opens as a young Isabel accompanies Cassie, her mother, on a house hunting expedition in the country. Cassie is a nurse who once dreamed of being an actress; Mr. Gold owns and operates a dry cleaning business. A school project, replicating an ancient Roman house, takes much of Isabel's time until April of 1968 when Cassie commits suicide "at the hospital where she worked, locking herself in a supply closet with a vast amount of pills, as if to say: This is the size of my hunger." Jeannie, the Gold's only other child, is very much unlike Isabel. She loves machinery, going to the dry cleaning store and seeing the dolly, the steamer, the presser "with its thick padded arms." Jeannie collects puppies, stuffed animals. She acquiesces. Isabel tests boundaries, beginning with hours spent at Lottie's house. They slather themselves with a peroxide and baby oil mixture to toast in the sun. Lottie is a leader, "the rule giver." She shoplifts a black bikini for Isabel, and gives Isabel her first lesbian kiss. The third member of their triune is "alternately wired and silent" Ben. Eventually, Isabel volunteers with a theater group that is presenting "Equus." She is rewarded by being allowed to play a horse. Since the memory of Cassie is never far from her mind, Isabel wonders if her mother did really have potential as an actress: "If she did have potential, she died still clutching it in her hands, like unplayed cards." "Isabel intended to play them all. All of them, one by one. Beginning with this beautiful silver horse." Following college, she tries to play those cards by moving to New York City with her lover, Thea, "whose family was Greek, and rich, and thoroughly scandalized by her." Living in an Avenue A apartment, they subsist on "Isabel's paychecks from her lowly office job at the Van Zandt Foundation for the Arts and Thea's paychecks from driving a newspaper delivery truck." Their goal is to make an experimental film about the goddess Diana. Yet, as her 22nd birthday approaches, Isabel still cannot escape thoughts of her mother. She imagines "slowly, what her mother would have given her on this birthday." "Isabel had done this on every birthday since her mother died. At nine, the imaginary gifts were meeting the Monkees and white go-go boots and every single Nancy Drew. At twelve, a record player, a trip to California, just the two of them. At eightee

This novel is a dream. It is a tale woven simply and quite deftly from impression and nuance. One falls easilly for its charms and rather feels that it is the sort of tale not only read but passed through. Its characters are so readilly pondered,so unpretentiously presented. It breathes. The gift of lending true life and light to prose is rare, and such a honest approach is readilly welcome. Such frankness and clarity.exceptional!

The author's moving story of Isabel Gold, whose unremarkable life is affected by her mother's suicide, provides a quietly building story of a young woman who is haunted by her mother's sudden death. Isabel tries out many identities as she searches for new meaning in life following her mother's death in this engaging novel.

I was familiar with some of D'Erasmo's writing in the Voice, and so I looked forward to reading Tea. Simply put, this is a terrific novel; it was compulsively readable and struck a perfect balance between detached third-person narration and the at times overwhelming emotions of Isabel, its protagonist. There wasn't an overabundance of attention on the establishment of Isabel's sexual identity, and I liked that D'Erasmo focused instead on other aspects of character development. The book's sharp humor appealed to me, and overall, this was a relatively quick but still satisfying read.