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Overview
Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday and the San Francisco Chronicle
In this “profound, heart-wrenching, and resonant” Lambda Award–winning novel, a quintessentially modern family is transformed by the mental breakdown of their adolescent son (Francisco Goldman).
When Christopher disappears from his San Francisco home, his extended family comes together in a frantic search. But the sixteen-year-old is in much more trouble than they know, and their attempts to both support and save him will challenge their assumptions about themselves and one another. In “unflinching prose that’s both descriptive and soulful,” Stacey D’Erasmo explores the ways in which love moves us to actions that have both redemptive and disastrous consequences—sometimes in the same heartbeat (Time Out New York).
“Open A Seahorse Year and be mesmerized,” raved the Advocate of this exquisitely crafted novel that is “both deeply satisfying and quietly subversive” (The New York Times Book Review). A winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction and other honors, A Seahorse Year is “a stunning achievement” (Suzan Sherman).
“[D’Erasmo] writes with a graceful, sometimes devastating directness, in clear, crisp phrases lined with subtle lyricism.” —The Boston Globe
“Alternating perspectives and controlled, nuanced writing bring depth and compassion to each character . . . [and] make D’Erasmo an author to watch.” —Library Journal
“After turning a page or two of A Seahorse Year you’ll know you’re into something special.” —Out magazine
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780547394268 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| Publication date: | 10/13/2005 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| File size: | 913 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
BLOOD
Nan stands in line at Celestial Coffee, the alternative Starbucks, behind a teenage Goth girl and a woman in running clothes with a baby in a jogging stroller. Celestial Coffee has signed posters of jazz musicians on the walls, vegan baked goods, and one visible employee, a meditative young man in a Keep on Truckin' T-shirt. Nan hates Starbucks, but needs coffee, especially now, so Celestial is her compromise. She makes it with a kind of wry despair. O, San Francisco. Sometimes she finds it funny; at other times it makes her want to weep. When did the city of free love become the city of cash? Though the headlines insist that the bubble has burst, there remains an over-caffeinated fantasy, a bewitched atmosphere. Parades of people in khakis instead of parades of men in dresses, on roller skates. The mini-titans are jobless but still smiling. Lattes are being made all over town. She watches the procession go by, feeling like the only disenchanted one.
The woman with the baby in the jogging stroller has blond hair, pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a piece of purple yarn; the color in her cheeks is high, though her eyes look tired. The baby is sleeping peacefully, its tiny pink fists folded on its chest. In the aerodynamic wedge of stroller, he looks to Nan like a modern Moses in a polypropylene basket, floating down the river. She barely resists the urge to adjust his exquisite, sapphire blue Polartec blanket, saddle-stitched around the edges in white, the Patagonia label showing. The Goth girl, despite the thick eyeliner and witchy dyed black hair and bits of metal studding her face, has a tentative expression, a skittish manner, as if this is her first time out as a Goth. She orders a double mint cappuccino. The woman with the baby orders a chai tea with steamed soy milk.
"Coffee, large, black," says Nan to the meditative young man behind the counter as he steams the soy milk, then, to the blond woman, "How old?"
"Twelve weeks," she says proudly. "He was up all night last night." She gazes at the baby with exhausted wonderment. "We tried everything." The young man hands the woman her tea in a plain white paper cup.
The Goth girl, sitting at a table nearby reading the San Francisco Weekly and drinking her double mint cappuccino, says, "Have you tried holding him on your knees, you know, on his stomach, while you rub his back?"
"Oh," says the blond woman. "No."
"Try that," says the Goth girl.
The woman laughs and looks at Nan complicitously. "Well," she says.
"It's true," says Nan. The young man hands her the large black coffee; the cup is warm and heavy in her hands. She was up all night, too, again, and now has the transparent, vertiginous feeling that coffee shreds but doesn't soothe.
"Oh?" says the woman, tightening her ponytail. "Are you a doctor?" Her eyes drift over Nan's face.
"I'm a mother," says Nan, and she knows her tone is aggressive. She tries to smile. "But my son is sixteen. A big boy."
"Ah," says the woman, tucking in her baby, who is still sound asleep. "So you're past all this."
Nan abruptly turns away, panicked by a strange thought. As she fumbles to open the door, she blows into the little sip hole in the plastic coffee lid, then burns her tongue on the hot coffee. She rubs the warm cup on her cold forehead, feeling defeated, which makes her only more focused. If she could stay awake all the time, she would. In her mind, Hal tuts, "Hard-ass," and Marina, more tenderly, tells her that she's "hypervigilant," but they're not, Nan thinks, mothers. They're not her. Demons walk right past those two all the time and they don't even notice, but she does. She sees demons every day, as ordinary as dirt — except, of course, that she didn't see this one coming at all. Which makes her no different from the ponytailed blonde, no matter how little soy milk she puts in her coffee.
The strange thought is this: maybe it was the otters.
When Christopher was ten, she took him for a treat to the Monterey Aquarium. He was already a fish expert. Marina had just sailed into Nan's life, silver flags flying. When Marina left Nan's house early — a Saturday morning, she remembers — Nan went into Christopher's room and woke him up. "Hey," she said, "let's go see some fishes."
He blinked at her, sleepy, faintly suspicious. "Who was that?" he said.
"Who?"
"Who left."
"A friend. Come on."
They drove down the 101, past the crowded suburbs to where eucalyptus trees lined the road and signs advertised cherries and garlic. Christopher was wrapped up in the big Complete Guide to the Undersea World, which was open on his knees, but Nan was still wrapped in Marina, who was, she had told Nan without any irony or self-deprecation, an artist. Nan could tell that Marina was younger, but by how much she didn't know. Marina's skin was unlined; her hair was silver; her gaze was somehow both frank and elusive. Marina Sweeney, she had said, holding out her hand. Marina Sweeney was almost waifish, but at the same time not: a wise child, with a long neck and a deep laugh. Taller than Nan. She wore a cheap ring with a little cartoon Mao star on it, a wrinkled, untucked blouse over a strange short corduroy skirt appliqued with a leather flower, and her hair was messy — in fact, everything about her was messy, half-wild, but beautiful, like a fire. The skirt looked like a hand-me-down, but somehow that was the sexy part. Nan, who hadn't even wanted to go to the party and had thought she'd leave early, was surprised to find that she was already burning as she shook Marina's hand. Nan was on the hunt then, but without any particularly keen hunger. It was a rough hand, Nan noticed, which was strange on such a pretty, almost waifish woman. Marina also had a little smirking smile, the smile of a woman with a secret. Nan's senses awoke; she immediately wanted to know what the secret could be. "Oh, an artist," Nan had said, thinking: Just what this city needs. She was still burning the next day. The hills, on the way to the aquarium that day, were browm and flammable, too. It was hot September: fire season. Christopher, his chest neatly crisscrossed by the seat belt, studied the pages of Undersea World as if he hadn't already read them a hundred times before. Hot air blew in on him, reddening his cheeks. The car's air conditioning had long been defunct. He didn't seem to notice.
Nan took his hand in the ticket line. He danced at the end of her arm, happily mother-bound and dreamy, with his white, white skin, cloudy blue eyes, and a delicate clear drop of snot coming down from one nostril.
"Christopher," said Nan, "wipe your nose." He purposely wiped it on the sleeve of his jean jacket, which was identical to hers. "Oh, silly," said Nan indulgently, and he laughed his exhilarated little boy's laugh. She handed him a tissue.
Nan paid the admission fee. She had meant to save this expensive treat for his birthday, but today she was in love. Their lives were about to change. "Don't let go of my hand," she said. "It's very crowded."
Christopher nodded, already craning his small neck to peer into this simulated undersea world. "Where are the otters?" he asked intently.
"I don't know." Nan led him forward. The cool exhibition spaces were dark, the only light coming from the tanks. Myriad configurations of people swirled around them: a blond family of four in matching T-shirts from Disneyland; two Asian women, holding hands, and a teenage girl who was probably the daughter of the shorter one; four gay men with tattoos and little cameras; a straight black couple with a tiny baby all in blue, facing out in his Snugli from the man's chest; a loose group of deaf kids, their hands making faint slapping noises as they roamed from tank to tank; a middle-aged white man and woman obviously on a date, making conversation about the fish. Nan held Christopher's hand, feeling nervous: one small boy, so many strangers, yards of dark, carpeted corridor that would muffle the sound of his footsteps. In clumps or clutches of two and three, everyone crowded up to the glass, where the dim shapes of fish could be seen swimming slowly through the artificial deep.
"Isn't that one glamorous!" said the woman on the date.
How different these people were, Nan thought, from her own terror-spotted family. On a day like today, someone — probably her mother, that helpless beauty — would already be crying. Nan and her brothers would be communicating out of the sides of their eyes, with the hunch of their shoulders, the way they walked. Not that there was an aquarium in their Texas town; not that there was any wildlife to watch except dogs and their father. Nan knew it was irrational, but still, grown as she was, she always half expected him to rise up out of all shadows, to burst at her from around a corner.
Leaning against the wall outside Celestial Coffee, Nan wonders if she should have known then. There were dangers in the world, even here, where predators seemed to swim peacefully together in the same tank.
Instead, she said, "Look at the octopus!" She pointed to a huge, orange, many-limbed creature lolloping over a hunk of coral.
"No," said Christopher sternly. "That's a squid." He watched the squid, deep in its squid funk, for a long time. Only the squid's head moved in the current. The current moved around it, making the plants sway.
"Let's give someone else a turn," said Nan. She let Christopher lead. He was confident, as if he had been there before. Nan started to explain ecosystems to him, but he stopped her.
"I know that," he said with some impatience. They wandered upstairs and into a small atrium with a domed ceiling. Inside the dome, hundreds of silver anchovies swam around and around in circles, like a silver tornado. The light fell on Christopher and Nan's upturned faces. Christopher laughed. Nan smiled. The silver tornado was Marina whispering all around her. A silver tornado, but with small, rough hands, and an unearthly chemical scent. In the morning, Nan found that Marina had left a smear of lilac paint inside her elbow.
Sipping her coffee, Nan thinks, Was I distracted back then? Dreaming about lilac paint when I should have been noticing even smaller, more important signs?
But she didn't let go of his hand. She wouldn't have; she was always so careful. His was a little damp with excitement as he pulled her on, to see the turtles. No, she did let go of him for a second. He got as close as he could to the mammoth sea turtles lumbering through the deep. He spread his hands on the glass, staring, as did every other child there. They all ran to put their hands on the glass. A little girl in stretchy red shorts who smelled of candy bumped into Nan, eager to see what Christopher saw.
"Say excuse me to the man," said her mother. Nan turned around; the woman blushed. "Oh," said the woman. "Oh. Sorry." Nan looked at Christopher. In deep communion with the sea turtles, he didn't seem to have heard. Nan was sure, however, that he had heard; recently, he had a way of darting in and out of comprehension when it suited him. She kissed him on the ear, gently moving him to one side so the little girl could see.
"Are we gonna touch 'em?" asked the little girl, wistfully. Christopher shook his head.
He and Nan made their way to the sharks. "I wish I had a shark," Christopher told her as they watched the malevolent faces and unblinking eyes skim the other side of the glass.
"Do you think they're happy in an aquarium?" asked Nan.
He shrugged coolly. "They're okay, I think."
His nose was running again. Nan took out a tissue and wiped it.
"Where are the otters?" Christopher asked.
"Oh, right," said Nan. "Let's get some lunch first."
He nodded. "Don't forget."
When they reached the cafeteria, Nan must have released Christopher's hand again — so that was twice — as he sauntered in his little jean jacket down the hall and into the food line, picking up a plastic tray and setting it onto the metal runner in the practiced manner of a child who goes to public school. He extended his arms onto the tray and attempted to hang from it, picking up first one sneaker and then the other in a way that Nan should have reprimanded him for but didn't. She was letting him get away with everything today because she had fallen in love with a silver-haired woman and she could tell already that Christopher wasn't going to like it. He preferred the women who came and went like social studies units at school: anthropologically interesting but forgotten as soon as the test was over. It was not, Nan reflected, so different from what her own attitude had been until today. I'm sorry, Chris, Nan thought, joining him in line. Our lives are going to change.
She bought them both greasy fish sticks and listened as he identified all the fish on his paper placemat. Nan thought it was oddly cannibalistic to serve fish sticks in an aquarium, but Christopher was sanguine. The border between looking at the fish and eating them, between love and ingestion, seemed to be irrelevant to him. Why not have the creatures you love inside you as well as outside you? She looked at the fish on her own placemat, thinking that if someone made a paper placemat of her ex-girlfriends, they'd all be the same breed: Femina aenigma. Prone to migration, sleeplessness, and a compelling faraway expression. Marina, in bed, let her in. They were inside and outside together. Marina's rough hands were surprisingly strong.
"Bat ray," said Christopher loudly. The ocean tumbled outside the large cafeteria windows.
"You said that one."
"In seahorses," Christopher informed her, "the boys have the babies."
"Then if I were a seahorse, I guess I'd have to be a boy so I could have you," said Nan.
"They eat plants."
"I like plants."
"Every day? Three meals a day? Plant cake?"
"Sure. Like Sharon — she's a vegetarian."
"All right." Christopher nodded, satisfied, and set his small milk carton into the center of his empty, greasy paper plate. Then he drew his eyebrows together, poised on the brink of a question.
Nan didn't feel like answering questions about Sharon today; Sharon was irrelevant now. But just then a man at the next table glanced out the window and said, "There are two sea otters."
Christopher jumped up and stood on his chair.
"Chris." She tugged the back of his pants.
"I don't see them!" He leaned, Nan tugged again, and he sat back down reluctantly.
Nan crumpled her napkin. "Let's go around, then we'll come back and see the otters."
They left the cafeteria and walked on, strolling beside the walls of sea life. Nan's feet were already getting tired. Christopher gazed soberly at each tank, as if he were a small scientist. The little girl in the stretchy red shorts was ahead of them, glancing at the tanks, then, excitedly, back at Christopher to see if he was watching her watch the fish, which he wasn't. The girl's mother, who had a sober face and slender arms, looked at Nan once, twice, in a quizzical way. Nan rested her hand on Christopher's shoulder; her palms were sweaty.
"What?" he said.
Nan didn't reply. She looked at Christopher, who was gazing into the kelp forest. Thick strands of two-story-high kelp breathed gently underwater. In the tank light, Christopher's face was perfect; he was an illuminated boy, a hologram. It occurred to Nan that maybe she loved him too much, maybe she had damaged him in some deep and subtle way by holding him so tightly in her heart. Maybe, she thought, she should have another one, to dilute her passion.
That was the only danger she saw that day: that she might love her son too much.
"Hey, I wanted to see the jellyfish," Nan said. "They're just across there."
Christopher looked unhappy.
"Then the otters. I promise." She held out her hand.
"They feed them at three," he mumbled grumpily, taking her hand.
In the jellyfish halls, backlit tanks contained both enormous and tiny jellyfish in incredible colors, neon pink and daffodil yellow and cerulean. Each tank was a moving painting. The transparent bonnet tops of the jellyfish undulated, gently turning inside out, then reinflating. To Nan, they were the discarded shifts of bare-breasted mermaids, slowly floating down from the surface, where the mermaids combed one another's long, wavy hair. Marina Sweeney, with her small, white feet, would be the mermaid who lost her comb, dropped her lyre, had a tangle in her hair. She would sit just a little bit apart from the other mermaids, lost in some thought of her own, chewing on her nails. Nan would wait behind the next rock, watching. After Marina left in the morning, Nan had found a barrette in the bed. It was a kind of shimmery opal color that had almost disappeared in Marina's silver hair. So now Marina had a reason to call: I left a barrette ... Nan had closed the barrette and set it on the bedside table, next to the phone. Surrounded by jellyfish, she let go of Christopher's hand then, too, she thinks — that was three — to reach out and touch the glass where the mermaids' dresses drifted down.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "A Seahorse Year"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Stacey D'Erasmo.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Title Page,
Table of Contents,
Copyright,
Dedication,
Epigraph,
Prologue,
BLOOD,
Sonoma,
BREATH,
El Cerrito,
BONE,
Walnut Creek,
STRING,
Coda,
About the Author,