A friend of mine--Melanie Abrams--just published a novel, Playing. I wrote a review on it, which will ultimately be published in MARY, a Saint Mary's College online magazine. I have a couple interviews published in there, but unfortunately they don't utilize Google's search engine optimization tools AT ALL, and it's impossible to find the magazine through Google. Not to mention the magazine's name is a little overdone--just try Googling MARY and see what comes up.

But, I digress. I'm super excited for Melanie who's been a great friend and literary support for me. So, here's the review I wrote:

At first glance, it might appear that Melanie Abrams’ debut novel, Playing, revolves entirely around the subject of sexual games. The cover reveals a young woman tied with a teal sash, her blonde head bowed in submission, surrounded by a background of sumptuous satin. It’s seductive really, and yet it offers a warning for the potential reader: this book is not for the faint of heart.

Yet Playing’s appeal extends far deeper than its steamy bedroom scenes. This well-orchestrated novel centers on Josie, an anthropology graduate student in her twenties with an interest in burial rituals. An ethnography assignment leads to a placement in a first-grade classroom where Josie develops a relationship with Tyler, a six-year old boy with an obsession for counting and trivial facts. Tyler’s mother, Mary, offers Josie a live-in nanny position and Josie takes it—not because she needs it, but because of an inexplicable connection between her and Mary. But when Josie falls for Mary’s crush, Devesh, an Indian doctor ten years her senior, she embarks on a tumultuous journey of sexual domination that increasingly complicates her life as the lines blur between Mary’s family and her own.

It is this relational complexity, compounded with the protagonist’s inexplicable desires, that makes the novel so compelling. While the tension between Josie and Devesh is riveting, over half of the book takes place exploring the other equally important relationships in Josie’s life. Her relationships with Devesh, Tyler, and Mary all force Josie to look at how her childhood has shaped her, and to finally face the haunting memories of her past.

Abrams pursues these various narrative threads with brilliant pacing, razor-sharp language, and tightly wound suspense. As the story progresses, the reader ends up feeling much like the woman on the front cover: willingly tied to the page as Abrams maintains a tension that keeps us aroused, horrified, and enrapt. As Josie navigates through her relationships somewhat recklessly, at times both disgusted and excited by her experience, the reader feels a similar magnetic push and pull.

This is where Abrams is particularly daring—not only has she created an electric tension between the book’s characters; she creates a tension between the reader and the story itself.

Josie is not extremely likeable for much of the story. Though she is largely caring for the children she nannies, and her vulnerability is relatable as she falls in love; she is also deceptive, self-abusing, and at times apathetic, and her behavior becomes increasingly volatile as she unravels on the page. As Josie explores herself through her sexual relationship with Devesh, the reader wonders—almost frustrated at times—what motivates her need for such brutality, and how can she be redeemed? Yet just when you feel like you can’t stand the character, just when you feel like you can’t handle another violent act, Abrams expertly offers the necessary information that delivers the needed dose of compassion to keep you hanging on for the ride, breathless, unable to set the novel down.

In addition to the conflicted relationship with the protagonist, Playing presents several other edgy topics to wrestle with: sexual violence that beautifully entangles love and power, and the even more uncomfortable topics of childhood violence and sexuality. Abrams faces both unflinchingly while not veering at all into the sensational or melodramatic. This conflicted novel-reader relationship is not unlike the experience of reading Nabokov’s Lolita. The protagonist disturbs us and yet we continue on, compelled without reason, upending our own mores about what is right and allowed on the sexual playing field.

And yet, hopefully, the book ultimately cracks us open as well, expanding our minds about what love can and cannot contain. Though Abrams’ novel certainly makes bold strokes into the realm of erotica, its superb writing, deep characters, and plot complexity keep it solidly in the realm of literary fiction. The book has much more to offer than sordid bedroom scenes and cliché sadomasochistic representation. It offers an intimate view into the heart and mind of a woman who wants what society tells her she shouldn’t, a woman who must ultimately learn to love herself not on society’s terms, but on her own.