Monday, June 23, 2003

Anyone in desperate need of a good novel should look up Breeder's Box by Timothy Murphy. I found it second-hand down in Camden in January then left it languishing in my 'to read' pile for ages, wondering exactly why I'd bought it. Then, when I could put it off no longer I started reading it a few weeks ago. And it was amazing!

It's the story of three siblings in their twenties, the eldest the artist Jess, an adopted Puerto Rican child, the middle the mercurial and fierce girl Flip, and the youngest the gay pianist and narrator 'Tigg'. Although the story centres around the six months that Flip started and ran a club called 'The Breeders Box', the story takes in their lives, as they grow up, go to school, and move in with one another in a Manhatten loft. With an unusual closeness that occasionally succeeds only in dragging them apart sometimes worrying their friends they always gravitate back together again as they approach the sixth month anniversary of the club.

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed both Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex and From Caucasia With Love by Danzy Senna when I realised it was another 'growing up in America' story I was eager to read it, and it didn't disappoint. We see the slow maturing of the characters and Murphy surrounds them with a colourful cast of exotic aunts, slimy schoolfriends, clublanders and and patient partners. We do have the de regeur drag queen with AIDS character and, unless I forgot a paragraph earlier in the book one of the lesbians suddenly turns out to have a drinking problem but otherwise this is an exciting book that carries you along. If I have a quibble it's that the last chapter seems a bit uncertain, as the story is told in flashback to nearly a decade before and things have changed a lot in the mean time Tigg now seems completely different to the person he describes at the end of his reminiscing. But that's a minor point. And a knowledge of clubbing is not needed to enjoy the book either. I mean, I enjoyed it.

|



<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?