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(More customer reviews)Bristling with frightening imagery and evoking both revulsion and admiration, Laura Denham's exceptional debut novel, "Have You Seen Me?" brings both depth and hard-earned wisdom to the coming-of-age genre. Her protagonist, by the time she has graduated from college, has had to endure not only sexual trauma (brought on after a cruel seduction by her father's best friend) but a childhood shorn of family coherence. Juliet has grown up in Santa Cruz, California, a haven for 1960s' flower children who seem to have no clue as to how to raise a child other than permit them to be "free."
Juliet's freedom includes calling her father Tom instead of Dad, suffering through a horrendous bout of hepatitis during high school, and being initiated into sex with a man old enough to be her father. By the time she has graduated from college with a dual major of psychology and dance, Juliet's self-image, never strong, has withered. San Francisco, with its promise of anonymity, provides a near-perfect backdrop for her descent into emotional numbness, physical degradation, and existential isolation. First as a stripper and eventually as a self-employed prostitute, Juliet doesn't so much live as sleepwalk through life. Her self worth erodes so terribly that she identifies with the ruins of the Loma Prieta earthquake: "only things worth rebuilding were repaired. Things that were too shaky to survive were either torn down or simply left alone."
To fill the void of a life without any close human contact, Juliet selects degrading masochism. Her job as a stripper brings her into contact with men whom she despises. The men who ogle her lithe, seemingly child-like body, are "self-centered, style-obsessed, rich spoiled children. I came to hate them...and I despised their divisive, computer-fixated culture." The customers would have "one hand on their persistently full, warm beer, and the other on their persistently full, warm crotch." Though Juliet begrudingly comes to assess the club dancers as "honest, clean, intelligent, friendly women," she eventually abandons dance and descends into pornography and prostitution.
Lacking any model of social responsibility or interpersonal contact based on mutual respect or trust, Juliet thrashes about in an emotional wilderness. Only catastrophy catapults her into the possibility of human redemption, through life in a secluded commune near her childhood home. It is through the artistic integrity of her creator that Juliet's struggle for genuine self understanding and acceptance gains universal status. Laura Denham's portrait of a young woman tortured by demons -- some imposed by wrongdoers, others self-inflicted -- is extraordinary in its emotional scope and inspiring glimpses into a personality fractured by life.
Ms. Denham's talents encompass much more than characterization and powerful narrative. The author's imagery sparkles throughout the novel. One character's eyes are "two polished dimes dotted in the middle with a single drop of Indian ink. Aluminum with tiny holes cut into the center. Littler sterling planets. Mercury...a bad poet's day out." A purportedly healthy yogurt drink "tastes like something that might have dripped out from between my legs, only flavored with strawberries." Ms. Denham can flat-out write.
"Have You Seen Me?" is a slim novel with great impact. Featuring a powerfully rendered protagonist, skilled dialogue and uncompromising glimpses of the seedier side of urban life, Laura Denham's first work is but a promise of an exciting literary career.
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