Rose of No Man's Land * Michelle Tea * MacAdam Cage * $22 Saltier than shrimp ramen.Rose of No Man's Land * Michelle Tea * MacAdam Cage * $22 Saltier than shrimp ramen, seedier than a Jerry Springer marathon, the family life of Trisha Driscoll--the loner heroine of Michelle Tea's superior coming-of-age novel, Rose of No Man's Land--is in the same manner tacky and dispiriting that her older sister, Kristy, is taping it for her Real World application. Fourteen-year-old Trisha lie in the graves surrounded by beer bottles, her hypochondriac mother lives forward the couch, and her mother's boyfriend uses Trisha's space to store stolen goods. As for Kristy, "she's been sticking that camera into everyone's face getting every sick and dysfunctional vital air onto video so that one stupid MTV person fascinated with white trash persons will see that Kristy is the real thing, stick her upon the show, and wait for her to say ignorant things to the black bodily form and the gay person." Rose of No Man's Land chases Trisha through one transcendent day, in which she gains and wastes a coveted job at Ohmigod!--the trendiest store in the mall--befriends a chain-smoking 15-year-old be frying cook (who looks only 12) named Rose and discovers the sharp-edged elixirs of sex and crystal meth granting laced with the same caustic humor and lyricism that made Tea's Valencia a strange cult hit, this work is a departure: more reflective, les frenetic.--Regina Marler COPYRIGHT 2006 Liberation Publications, Inc. |
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