The Golden State is Golden

One more book that didn't quite make it to Library Journal's top ten this year is still well worthy of the accolades it's been receiving and it's a debut novel that only came out last month! "The Golden State" by Lydia Kiesling, http://www.lydiakiesling.com/
touted as the next great read for young mothers, will be just as appealing to any age group that loves putting one word in front of another. I would venture to say that the title may less likely refer to California than it does to that "golden state" of time when a mom spends so much time in her toddler's company that she has an "ah ha" moment. There's actually a little person in there behind the whining, crying, and perpetually fussing visage.

Daphne is nearing a nervous breakdown the day she walks away from her office, packs up the accoutrement of babyhood, and puts the big Buick in overdrive. Leaving the stress of San Francisco behind, she and Honey are on their way to cowboy country where she has a haven awaiting in the form of an old mobile home left to her after the deaths of her mother and grandparents. In Altavista, she fools herself into thinking that she can get her priorities straight and bond with the toddler who has spent her life in daycare.

Daphne is no fool. She works at the university. She's multi-lingual. She's the sole support of her family right now as her Turkish husband was refused re-entry to the states on a technicality under the new administration. For eight months they have been holding the relationship together on the strength of daily Skype encounters, leaving each desperately lonely, unfulfilled, and questioning the future.

Kiesling has a fabulous way with words, often giving Daphne pages of extremely funny stream of consciousness conversations with herself. Sentences may go on and on without punctuation, a trope I normally find annoying, but which totally works in Daphne's case as she utters the inanities common to women who have no one to speak with but an eighteen-month-old. Daphne suffers the overwhelming guilt trips of most young moms who pray for their kid to nap so she can slip out back for a cigarette, or to go to sleep at night so she can sneak a vodka and OJ.

Far from one-dimensional, this novel is also cleverly political. Aside from the green card status of her Muslim husband, there is the secessionist group she meets in Altavista fronted by a childhood acquaintance ugly with resentments, and an opinionated octogenarian on a quest to capture memories of happier times.

Kiesling is a bold, honest writer with talent to spare. I must send this novel to my niece Rebecca who balances home, career, hubby and three wonderful kids. I just know she'll find it cathartic. In the meantime, head to your library or local bookstore and snatch up a copy of this delightful novel. It's a treat to understand what's going on in the heads of our under thirty generation. In fact, it's a necessity!