A Map of Tulsa: A Novel
Returning home from college to Tulsa for the summer, teenage Jim encounters wealthy, bohemian Adrienne, a distant acquaintance from high school, and falls in love. At the end of the summer, however, he returns to college and—perhaps improbably—loses touch with her. Five years later he receives an e-mail out of the blue that impulsively sends him back to Tulsa. Lytal’s first novel is dense with the maplike details of a specific place, the city of Tulsa, and also of the intricate geography of two young hearts. Taking himself very seriously, as young adults do, Jim is essentially humorless, as is Adrienne. And though the young man examines his relationship with Adrienne almost microscopically, the pair’s actions often seem arbitrary. Tulsa itself is a character in the novel but one that seems empty, the streets deserted and the city itself like a ghost town. A similar hollowness sometimes seems to infect the book itself. All this aside, however, it is beautifully written. Jim is an aspiring poet, and Lytal brings the same sensibility to his novel, making it, in the final analysis, a memorable reading experience. --Michael Cart