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Across the Page: Summer Reads 2008

This list of summer reads includes a wide range of styles and subjects: Stella Duffy’s multilayered The Room of Lost Things captures a neighborhood in South London through the eyes of six characters; Stephanie Grant’s Map of Ireland is the profound story of a young girl in South Boston during the 1970s; and Ariel Schrag‘s graphic memoirs chronicle her first three years at Berkeley High School in California.

The Room of Lost Things by Stella Duffy (Virago)

Stella Duffy’s inspired The Room of Lost Things, which was recently longlisted for the Orange Prize, is the story of Loughborough Junction, a diverse neighborhood in South London, through the eyes of six characters.

The main figure is Robert Sutton, who is in the midst of retiring from the dry-cleaning shop he’s owned for years. Robert’s unlikely successor is Akeel Khan, a young man from East London whose first step in forming his own identity and life is to move away from the watchful eye of his Pakistani family.

From the outside, Akeel and Robert could not be more different, and as the two men are forced to spend time together in the small confines of the shop, Duffy deftly reveals their awkwardness, skepticism and curiosity for “the other.” In fact, much of this book is about perspective – how two people can look at the same space in dramatically different ways not only because of where they come from but because of where they are headed.

This is also true for the other four other characters in The Room of Lost Things: Marilyn, an exhausted health visitor; Helen, a nanny whose introduction reveals the complexity of her position as the family’s prime caretaker; Stefan, a gay well-being guru who doesn’t always practice what he preaches; and bad-boy Dean.

As the characters move through Loughborough, bumping into and off each other, Duffy slowly weaves a complex, engaging and powerful narrative. The multiple points of view provide a complete picture of the community on both a micro and macro level, revealing the characters’ individual secrets and lives against the changing face of the neighborhood.

In the middle of everything is a room in the back of Robert’s shop for, as the title denotes, “lost things.” Akeel learns of the room after he talks with Robert about having to write a best man’s speech for his cousin’s wedding. Robert brings him to the room, which he had originally called the storeroom, to reveal a collection of items that “people leave in their pockets,” including a speech.

Akeel is surprised by Robert’s pride at what he considers “at best hoarding, and at worst maybe theft,” but the room serves as a brilliant metaphor that Duffy finally brings to the surface: Somewhere inside each of us exists a room for lost things.

Map of Ireland by Stephanie Grant (Scribner)

“Even though I’m not a practicing Catholic, I still need confession,” says Ann Ahern, the sharp, 16-year-old narrator of Stephanie Grant’s Map of Ireland, which is set in South Boston in 1974 during desegregation of Ann’s high school.

In the first few pages of the novel, Ann explains that she has recently landed herself in St. Joseph’s Home for Girls (“which, don’t be fooled by the name, is a state facility for juvenile girls”), and that part of her crime involved burning down a house. If she was a “certain kind of person,” she says, she’d blame her troubles on her Senegalese teacher, Mademoiselle Eugénie, or on “desegregation itself.”

From the beginning, Ann does not know what to make of Mademoiselle Eugénie, the French teacher who quickly becomes the object of her affection. The issue is not that Ann is attracted to a woman – Ann is remarkably open and out for a teenager living in South Boston in the mid-1970s. What’s so surprising about this crush is that Mademoiselle Eugénie “was the blackest person” Ann had ever seen.

“The color shone off Mademoiselle Eugénie’s skin, and I realized then, for the first time, that black had other colors in it.”

Ann’s Irish-American background has not necessarily prepared her for the racial tensions ignited during the desegregation of her high school – “the White parents lining Day Boulevard, throwing rocks at the buses.”

Ann is a complex character and the perfect lens from which to view this important and highly charged era. Though her face has “the map of Ireland” all over, her sexuality gives her insight into what it feels like to be the “other” or “different” within a community.

As Ann joins the opposite side of the picketing line, her crush on Mademoiselle Eugénie and classmate Rochelle eventually leads her to leave the “peninsula” of South Boston. On her journey, Ann meets up with black militants and discovers more about herself than she expected – or perhaps even cared to learn.

Grant brilliantly captures Ann’s sense of dislocation, both emotional and geographic. South Boston may not be perfect, but Ann knows her way around. She knows the rules and how to play the game. The book depicts a very specific moment in American history, but the story stays focused on Ann, and one of its strengths is that Grant allows her to be a flawed and honest narrator.

Grant’s first novel, The Passion of Alice (1996), was the story of a young woman struggling with anorexia. Though the books are very different, both feature strong young women who are troubled, smart and all too real. Map of Ireland is both an engaging and heartening read.

Awkward and Definition, Potential by Ariel Schrag (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster)

While most of us simply waxed poetic in the private pages of our diaries, Ariel Schrag actually produced something of her adolescent angst: three witty and insightful graphic novels documenting her first three years at Berkeley High School in Berkeley, Calif.

Originally published by Slave Labor Graphics, the books were recently re-released by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, which combined the first two years, Awkward and Definition, into one book. Schrag, who wrote for Seasons 3 and 4 of The L Word, also wrote the screen adaptation for Potential, which is currently being made into a movie by Killer Films and will be directed by Rose Troche.

The shiny new covers of the Touchstone editions do not take anything away from Schrag’s edgy storytelling. Awkward introduces the very young Schrag as she stumbles through her first year of high school. The drawings are rudimentary, which is actually part of the charm, and the title could not be more appropriate or universal.

Definition picks up where Awkward leaves off. Now that Schrag is a bit more grounded in school and herself, she begins to consider that abstract concept of identity. She is obsessed with defining people, including herself, and this is the year she comes out as bisexual.

The bubble – an actual illustrated bubble- where Schrag kisses her crush is titled “Definition Perfection.” The drawing is incredibly precise and realistic, as though the world is now in focus, and Schrag writes in one of her characteristic musings: “It was as if everything about kissing made sense and all those other awful bland boring kisses I’d had vanished away with unimportance and insignificance.”

Potential, which was nominated for an Eisner Award, is next in the series, and it is easy to see why this book was picked to be made into a film. The year begins with a revelation when Schrag finally admits that she’s not bisexual: “Well, it’s not like being bi was some prize to hold onto! So with a final fling – reality reared forth … DYKEDOM HERE I COME! No pun intended!”

The revelations don’t stop there. In Potential, Schrag’s life becomes more complicated, and with pen in hand she documents every turn: falling in and out of love; her deliciously torturous relationship with the senior Sally Jults; losing her virginity to a boy (“I will not be a 17-year-old virgin”); dealing with her bickering parents.

The series is an absolutely addictive read. The fourth installment of her senior year, Likewise, is due out in 2009. Start reading now.

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