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Journey Into Imagination
By Rob | March 8, 2007
Here is where I give you my review of what I consider to be a great and important novel. It’s not new, but I don’t believe that the only books that should be reviewed on a regular basis are the new bestsellers just hitting the shelves. I strongly believe that there are books out there that have been forgotten and need to be rediscovered.
One such book is Mitch Cullin’s “Tideland” which was first published in 2000, only to be left on the shelf and forgotten until recently when film director Terry Gilliam discovered it and decided it needed to be made into a film. The film was shown in small indie theaters for a little while back in 2006, and finally made it to DVD early this week. I, myself, have not seen the film as I wanted to read the novel first. But, since this is an “old” book (by the standards of Barnes & Noble) it was hard for me to find so I had to order it. But, I received it the other day and now that I’ve finished I’m ready to send it on to all of you who read this.
The story told by 9-year-old Jeliza-Rose is set in rural Texas. After her mother’s death from a heroin overdose, her equally addicted father Noah decides to pack her up and take her to live in his late mother’s home in rural Texas. Noah is an aging rock musician, who achieved some notoriety in his day, as flashbacks to his career include encounters with Pete Townshend and Keith Moon. It was Keith Moon who gave Noah the woman who would become his wife.
They arrive at the house and Jeliza-Rose is in a whole new world. Most of the story from this point on takes place in her imagination, with the occasional flashback to her life in California. She’s by herself in a lonely world, with no friends aside from Barbie Doll heads her mother bought her at a thrift store and fireflies who reign in a burnt out school bus just off of the property.
Jeliza-Rose is on her own. Her father will no longer speak to her or acknowledge her presence, he just sits and stares at the wall. She brings him food everyday, but it remains uneaten. She lets him be because she’s seen him this way before. He and her mother have spent days in various trance like states after Jeliza-Rose has brought them their needles. So, she invents her friends and goes to live in her imagination until her father returns from his.
She and her disembodied Barbies have adventures in the fields that surround her late grandmother’s home. They play in the school bus with the fireflies, and wage wars with the army ants on the front porch. They spy from the brush on the lady ghost that haunts the grounds, who wears a veiled helmet so no one will see her face.
She doesn’t stay alone, though. Eventually she meets the ghost-lady, a woman named Dell who lives with her epileptic brother Dickens close by. Jeliza-Rose finds a friend in Dickens and the two embark on adventures of their own together as they pursue the great killer shark that rides the train tracks near the school bus.
Many of the images of this book are disturbing, and many are equally beautiful. A lot of people won’t like the images of a 9-year-old giving heroin to her mother and father. A lot of people won’t a lot of the images in this book. But, they’re real. The story is very real even though it’s told from the perspective of a young girl with a wild imagination. But read it, then watch the film. Then, expect a whole lot more from up and coming author Mitch Cullin, because he’s a true wordsmith.
EDIT: Last night I finished Cullin’s first novel “Whompyjawed” about a high school football star and his life in a small Texas town. It’s very different from “Tideland” but just as good a read.
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