Knopf (2003), $19.95
The debut novel from Dave Eggers' wife and The Believer magazine Interviews Editor Vendela Vida is as tentative and inoffensive as a peach-colored crayon. The book's sole moment of dramatic tension -- in which its female narrator, Ellis, a street-wise 21-year-old art history grad student, narrowly escapes being killed in a New York City park by a gun-toting madman -- happens in the first nine pages. The remaining 180 feature a string of short scenes that feel like outtakes from a young woman's diary: Ellis having sex with this boy and that, Ellis going home for vacation, Ellis accompanying her mom to the Philippines to do charity eye surgery. Ostensibly these scenes are supposed to reveal something about Ellis' personal growth, but the author doesn't stick with any incident long enough, or press on her young characters hard enough for them to emit anything deeper than melancholic sighs. Vida, a natural writer, creates seductive characters -- the likable and convincing Ellis, for example, and her narcissistic ex-boyfriend, who tells her he's going to commit suicide while tapes of him practicing violin play in the background. Now all Vida needs is a story.
