Annotation
"Stacey D'Erasmo's novel is a book about a pivotal year in the life of a quintessentially modern family. In contemporary San Francisco, an extended family is transformed by the emerging breakdown of a troubled adolescent boy. The lives of those who love Christopher - his mother, Nan; her lover, Marina; his gay father, Hal; and Christopher's loyal girlfriend Tamara - are pushed to the edge by something new in him that mystifies them all. When he runs away, far into the woods of northern California, their assumptions about themselves and one another are sorely tested. They might not, they discover, be quite so modern as they once thought. Even the dried seahorses on Marina's windowpane rattle unnervingly, as if to announce a time like no other." "In precise, lyrical language, A Seahorse Year explores love at the limits of bearability. It is wise about the things we do out of love that often have both redemptive and disastrous consequences. Difficult questions that have all the tough complexity of real life are asked; devastating truths are revealed in the answers."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Awards
2005 Publishing Triangle Awards
2005 Lambda Literary Awards
Characters
| Name | Nan |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Bookstore owner |
| Traits | Lesbian |
| Mother | |
| Abused | |
| Name | Hal |
| Gender | Male |
| Occupation | Accountant |
| Traits | Gay |
| Father | |
| Name | Christopher |
| Gender | Male |
| Traits | Schizophrenic |
| Troubled | |
| Name | Marina |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Artist |
| Trait | Lesbian |
| Name | Tamara |
| Gender | Female |
| Genre | Domestic Fiction Psychological |
| Topics | Teenage boys Mental illness Schizophrenia Runaways Extended families Parenthood Gay men Lesbians Relationships Life changes |
| Setting | San Francisco, California Northern California |