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Review by Leah Odze Epstein
Inspired by The Odyssey, Brian Hall's wildly inventive second novel The Saskiad takes place not in Greece but outside Ithaca, New York. If 12-year-old Saskia White, the novel's narrator, is a modern-day Telemachus on a quest to connect with her long-gone father, then her father is the absent Odysseus, and the autobiography she writes is her "Saskiad," her attempt to discover her true self.
Saskia can remember when she was four and her mother's farm was a commune called Wonderland, "the days of hemp and LSD, endless talks and buck nakedness . . . prayer wheels, huts [and] a guru named Truth" -- the days before the guru had a nervous breakdown, the commune crumbled, and her Danish father left for good. She still has lots of questions, though: What does her name mean? And why does her father never include his return address on the postcards he sends from his wanderings?
Tired of her mother's grudging answers to "one out of ten" of her questions, Saskia turns to books and to her rich fantasy life for answers. When she's not dodging the nasty "dregs" at Tyler Junior High or tuning out her teachers to talk to Marco Polo himself, Saskia hangs out with her imaginary heroes, Captain Horatio Hornblower and Odysseus, and dreams up schemes to befriend the new girl in town, the beautiful Jane Singh.
In Jane Singh, Saskia finds her first female heroine and a foot in the real world of adolescence -- a best friend who learns her language and shares her stories. She even finishes her autobiography so she can spend every minute alone with Jane, feeling her life complete until she gets a postcard from her father inviting her to spend the summer hiking in Norway. Saskia accepts and brings Jane, embarking on a real-life odyssey as mysterious and surprising as any of her imaginary adventures.
Whether stepping inside Saskia's imagination to capture her secret language or into the corridors of junior high school to convey adolescent angst, Brian Hall distinguishes The Saskiad from other coming-of-age novels by his remarkable closeness to his character. He puts no distance between himself and Saskia, and his respect and love for her shine through every sentence. What emerges is this extraordinary girl's incredible inner life, one seemingly uncensored and unjudged, and thus one that rings true on many levels.
The Saskiad is the kind of rare book you'll find yourself wanting to reread to catch details you've missed -- gems of language, bits and pieces of Saskia's story. Brian Hall so brilliantly blends the layers of Saskia's fantasy world, her intellectual world, and her day-to-day reality that his novel mimics the richness of life itself.
Leah Odze Epstein is a freelance writer in New York.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.