Welcome To Zero City, Baby

The Basics:

Title: Welcome to Zero City, Baby

Author: David Racine

Publisher: Dufour Editions, 2012

Length: 512 pages

The Overview:

Sixteen-year-old Teri is dragged from her comfortable life in Baltimore, MD to muggy rural Mississippi when her mother accepts an administrative job at a southern college. There, Teri must adjust to life at her new school and navigate social entanglements while making sense of her parents' odd separation, which has caused them to move into two independent sides of the same duplex home. When Teri meets Nother Martin, the son of a local blues legend, he and his large, sprawling family introduce her to a more content way of life. However, she must face more than her fair share of tragedy and heart break and in the process accept the harsh realities and responsibilities of adulthood. 

Why I Read It:

A friend who is an editor for Dufour Editions recommended it. Also, at 18 I moved from Maryland to New Orleans, so Teri's move as a teenager mimicked mine in many ways. 

Why You Should Read It:

Teri is a strongly-written character with a sharp wit and realistic teenage concerns and flaws. The majority of the book is written in first person in her voice, providing the reader a strong narrative. However, third-person vignettes occur throughout the plot, allowing Racine some degree of omnipotence and giving us a glance into other characters' motivations. The format works brilliantly with the plot. Teri's parents are also both robust, enjoyable characters. Her mother is a hard-line, over-achieving academic with lofty goals for her daughter, while Teri's father is a sympathetic, comforting man with more than a little bit of wisdom, in the vein of Atticus Finch. 

The Martin family is perhaps the most inspired aspect of Welcome to Zero City, Baby. Teri's love interest Nother is the son of legendary local musician Crosscut Martin and a roadside Cajun fortune teller named Madame Marie. His slew of siblings, in-laws, nieces, and nephews paint a warm picture of close-knit family life in the Mississippi Delta. Nother himself is a unique, soft-spoken, independent young man who leaves a lasting impression long after you've put the novel down.

Perhaps most importantly, this novel addresses hard lessons that every person must learn in the process of becoming an adult, and it does so without indulging in heavy-handedness or cliche. I believe that the struggle to escape teenage pains and hardships is largely a struggle against oneself, and Teri also must learn this lesson while dealing with legitimate emotional pain. 

Overall, this book progresses nicely and elicits a wide range of strong emotions. I would recommend it to anyone who is comfortable with long novels that do not always move at break-neck speed. If you are willing to put in some real time getting to know and love the characters, this one will not let you down emotionally or intellectually.