Welcome to Zero City Baby

David Racine. Dufour, $15.95 trade paper (508p) ISBN 978-0-8023-1351-5

Uprooted from her home in Baltimore, teenaged Teri moves to the Mississippi Delta with her mother, who is pursuing a new career in academic administration. Although her parents have recently separated, her father moves south as well, and the whole family shares a duplex—Teri and her mother in one half and her father in the other. Navigating a new town and a markedly different culture isn't easy for Teri. While struggling to make new friends and manage her strained relationships with her parents, Teri meets Nother Martin, the son of Blues legend Crosscut Martin. They soon begin dating, and Teri escapes into Nother's world of blues music, roadhouse bars, and supportive family, from whom Teri learns how to appreciate the slow pace of Mississippi life and how to gracefully handle life's ups and downs. All of this is relayed via Teri's meticulous journal entries, which are balanced by a 3rd-person account of a police investigation into an act of vandalism. Racine's beautiful prose deftly handles these alternate narratives, and while Teri's portions are occasionally overly self-absorbed—as you may expect from an angsty teenager—her perceptive voice adds depth and pathos to this modern-day bildungsroman. (May)

Reviewed on: 07/02/2012

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