cover image WHERE WE LIVED

WHERE WE LIVED

Christina Fitzpatrick, . . HarperCollins, $24 (261pp) ISBN 978-0-06-019769-8

Fitzpatrick's debut work is dubbed "A Fiction," a neat way of evading the problem of what to call a collection of slightly interconnected stories that don't quite cohere into a novel. They revolve around a group of girls growing up in a Massachusetts town and navigating their way through family problems, often involving abuse and threatening sexual situations. The tone is bitter and wary, the few moments of calm and fleeting content extremely hard-won. The only real nongeographical link between the stories is that some of the girls—Claire, a bartender and aspiring writer; Gwen, who wants to be a model; Emma, who is murdered; poor Tanya with her brutal brother; and Mia with her suicidal father—get to know each other, and some play brief roles in others' stories. Fitzpatrick has a wonderful eye for suburban squalor and teenage angst, and there are memorable scenes: a girl hiding on a roof from a boy who has come to beat her up; a mad neighbor who burns herself to death; a terrible train journey with a seemingly sweet drunk who suddenly turns abusive; a sinister youth who terrorizes a girl in a swimming pool. But despite the graphic sketches of anxiety and the never-relaxing sense of chronic unease, a certain monotony sets in. Although some girls are presented in the first person and some in the third, their experiences and world views are essentially similar, so that it is a relief when, in the last story, Claire the would-be writer (clearly representing the author) invents a foolish, lighthearted fable in which she involves herself with David Letterman. There is a large talent at work here, but on this evidence it is better suited to unashamed short stories than to creating a bigger picture. (July 3)