Tideland

by Mitch Cullin

Book Overview

A look at the world through the eyes of a wildly imaginative young girl in contemporary Texas.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802313353
• ISBN13: 9780802313355
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Dufour Editions
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

Texas Gothic

Alas, it seems that Terry Gilliam's film adaptation, beset with problems, will not serve well this fine, imaginative novel. That is a shame, because I am convinced that one day this book will be a classic, with a place of its own next to Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood", and the works of William Faulkner. I entreat those of you who like beautiful, evocative writing combined with indelibly grotesque characters to give this book a try. ***SPOILER ALERT!!*** IF YOU CAN'T HANDLE READING A PLOT SUMMARY, STOP RIGHT HERE. To read this book is to inhabit the mind of Jeliza-Rose, the narrator. Jeliza-Rose is an unfortunate young girl, a haunting victim in the mold of Edward Gorey's "Hapless Child". Both of her parents are junkies, and by the time she is nine, Jeliza-Rose has learned to prepare their fixes for them. When the mother overdoses and dies, Jeliza-Rose's father (a has-been Rock 'n Roller) travels to Texas with her by Greyhound bus to find sanctuary in his family's remote and deserted homestead. Not long after moving into the house, the father also dies of an apparent overdose. As her father reposes untouched in his chair, the utterly alone jeliza- Rose retreats into the shadowy world of her imagination. She occupies herself by battling the natural intrusions of the outside world--red ants and a noisome squirrel that invade the house. There is a beautiful, dreamy suspension about these interludes. Jeliza-Rose further protects herself by engaging in imaginary telepathic conversations with her collection of Barbie-doll heads, particularly one that she calls "Classique". The dolls are enlisted as her allies. For parts of the book, the doll heads seem to function like a Greek chorus, bouncing comments both satirical and poignant back to Jeliza-Rose as she play-acts through her traumas. As Jeliza-Rose begins tentatively exploring the area around the house, she encounters a mysterious, shrouded woman at work gardening. After observing the woman from a distance, Jeliza-Rose's curiosity moves her toward making contact. The woman at first seems only aloof and severe--but instead of hope for Jeliza-Rose's plight, the woman ("Dell") offers only a more deeply disturbed pathology. Jeliza-Rose is drawn into her web, where also resides "Dickens", Dell's freakish, child-like brother. Jeliza-Rose forms a queasy bond with Dickens, as his "playmate." At the conclusion of the book, Dickens in effect blasts a hole into the real world by dynamiting a passenger train which runs by the property. Whether Jeliza-Rose will choose to be rescued remains unclear, but Mitch Cullin seems to imply that only another catastrophe can free the girl from her doomed existence. Mitch Cullin has created a character, in Jeliza-Rose, that will haunt your mind long after you have finished this book. She is the wispish, precociously imaginative Alice-in-Wonderland for our dark, drug-addled times.

Alice in Suburbia

Tideland is a fascinating read that stops just short of being good enough to be considered a classic. Even if at first it seems just another updated version of Alice In Wonderland / The Wizard of Oz / The Neverending Story etc. - a child creating a fantasy world as a way of dealing with difficulties of life and a metaphor for growing up - it becomes abundantly clear very early on that Jeliza-Rose's story is a very different one from those of Alice and Dorothy. Tideland is decisively stronger and darker than those classics, and subtlety is all but forgotten; Mitch Cullin makes no attempt to disguise the horrors he writes about or to disguise his novel as a children's tale. Tideland is definitely a novel for adults, and Cullin gives the reader the awful truth straight and headlong. That is the novel's strength but also its weakness. All too often Cullin seems to be bent on shocking the reader in any manner available to him, and the hopelessness of Jeliza-Rose's life is so obvious and overwhelming, the novel soon becomes unbearably depressing. Jeliza-Rose's optimism fails to convince; her situation is too impossible, and she is obviously far too disturbed and distorted to be taken seriously as a narrator. Which brings me to the biggest problem I had with the novel - even though I got past all the others, this kept bugging me. Cullin seems not entirely certain of the manner and style in which he narrates his story. The story is told in the past tense - in a way that hints at a long period of time passed between the event and the telling. However, Jeliza-Rose as a narrator seems sometimes aware of her situation and sometimes not; sometimes the story is told from the point of view of a little girl in a disturbed state of mind, sometimes that of a grown woman looking back at her own harsh childhood. And all too often Cullin's own voice creeps into the mix. With that chronic stylistic problem in mind, the story of Tideland is still fascinating enough to be an excellent read. Yes, it's depressing and it's frustrating, but it's also not too long for its own good and fueled with enough humor, morbid and dark though it is, to make it quick and engrossing. Tideland is not an easy read, but a difficult and pessimistic tale. While it falls somewhat between the lines, not at all working as a mature and sophisticated children's tale and not quite complete enough to be a real literary classic - Tideland fails to reach the full of its potential but it's filled with original and enticing imagery and descriptions, and a terrific little story. I'm excited to see it transformed to the big screen by the great Terry Gilliam, because the dark and surreal imagery has great cinematic potential and Gilliam is probably the best man to bring out the book's terrific potential. It's all too likely that the film will be good enough to completely overshadow the novel, but it's still worth checking out.

Hypnotic and Shocking

Tideland seized my imagination from the first page, and I think most readers will follow Cullin's extraordinary conceptions with astonishment and delight. Told in the past tense, thus suggesting a good deal of time has passed before its telling, Jeliza-Rose's adventures among the mesquites are haunting, strange, and often beautiful. Her encounters with the odd pair of Dell and Dickens come at a welcome time, yet leads us down an even darker path of family secrets and hidden boxes of dynamite.Considering Tideland came just months after Cullin's Branches and only a few months before his equally wonderful but different The Cosmology of Bing, one can only imagine what this very talented and singular storyteller has up his sleeve next. Until then, I highly recommend the curious world of Tideland, which is a work of so unusual a nature as to throw new light on Cullin's already brilliant career.

Cullin's best

Both poetic and thrilling, the best thing about this novel in the texture: the language and visual imagery are both stunning. This is a wonderful take on a twisted childhood, and so it's no surpirise Terry Gilliam will direct the movie version: the surreal and dreamy misprision is right up his alley. One might quibble that the voice of the narrator in the novel would be beyond that of a child, but the payoff of the reading experience is probably worth the suspension of disbelief.