The Chelsea Whistle (Live Girls Series)

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Summary: The Chelsea Whistle
Review: "Gritty" is used many times in the book to describe Chelsea, MA and applies to many of the events recounted, the author's experiences from age 8 to adulthood. It is a no-holds-barred description of the author, inside and out, and her relationships with her sister, mother, father, step-father and lovers, male and female. Some of it interested me, a heterosexual male; some was stomach-turning. Although the author seems later to have found success, if not happiness, her status as described at the end of the book was profoundly depressing. For some reason she used italics for speeches of others and initial caps for her speech. At just over 300 pages the book seemed long.

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Summary: overwrought, over-the-top, Tea's harsh memoir falters badly
Review: After trudging through Michelle Tea's gritty, depressing and desperately uneven recollections of her degraded and desolate childhood and adolescence, exhausted readers will have reason to congratulate both the author and themselves for survival skills. Written in staccato bursts of stream of consciousnessness vignettes which yearn for an editor's red pencil, "The Chelsea Whistle" valiantly attempts to not only narrate but explain how poverty and hopelessness blight lives. Unfortunately, Tea spends far too much time describing events and cataloging abuses and far too little time analyzing their influence. Sure, her horrific Chelsea, Massachusetts, the place where the American Dream goes to die, suffocates and submerges creative individualism and creative impulse. Of course, the only families that city spawns are pathetically dysfunctional. With Tea's ham-handed approach, readers will shrug their shoulders and say, "So what?"

The memoir is not completely without merit. The author's candid appraisal ofher life, aswirl in class, ethnic, racial and religious prejudices provides ample opportunity for Tea's sardonic resentment to manifest itself. The memoir bogs down, though, in the prosaic protests the author mounts; after all, how many song titles, dress styles and alcoholic drinks does it take to lead us to the inevitable conclusion that the author dissipated her physical and emotional self. Never once does the author permit us to glance into her developing homosexuality; instead, Tea prefers titillation and presumed shock instead of peceptive self-evalution. This omission is doubly galling as numerous young lesbians may well turn to this memoir for solace and solidarity. What they will receive is stereotype and caricature.

There are serious stylistic flaws as well in "The Chelsea Whistle." Its author apparently does not believe in dialogue or quotation marks; instead, she prefers to wow the reader with capitalized letters for the spoken word. This isn't artistic creativity, but a writer playing at trendy iconoclasm. Even more pathetic is her presenation of a serious family trauma as the "deep dark secret only to be revealed late in the memoir." Once exposed, her epiphany is not apocalyptic but mundane, not horrifying but banal. Tragically, Michelle Tea's suffering appears anti-climactic. But then, why should her "catastrophy" be anything else but another flavor in her multi-scooped cone of despair.

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Summary: The Chelsea Whistle
Review: Growing up in Chelsea myself I find this book to be a gross exaggaration of the truth. Michelle's family life was the slum not the streets of Chelsea. You can't blame your dysfunctional life on Chelsea.

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Summary: Thoughtful and Thought Provoking
Review: Michelle Tea's newest "The Chelsea Whistle" is filled with insight and explanation into the world of not-quite-poverty in the small town of Chelsea. It paints a bleak picture of how one girl experiences the bitter abuses,contradictions, secrets, and betrayals of her family and how despite the fact she manages to hope. "The Chelsea Whistle" is at times languid, dramatic and emotional and with the flip of a page abrasive, crude and blunt. It is written with a powerful voice that is honest and ultimately hopeful with just a dash of humor. Reminiscent of Judy Bloom, Tea writes herself like a composite of the best young heroines from the books of her youth. Although it's quiet ending has disappointed others, this reader finds it refreshing and true to life - which does not wrap up our hardships in neat little bundles ready for Hollywood screens or Tuesday night movies of the week. And this book is all the braver for it. Thank you, Miss Tea for telling it like it is.

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Summary: She does it again.
Review: Michelle's good. She knows she's good. Once I wrote her an email professing my undying love (or something like that) for her and she wrote back with, "Thanks!" I was glowing like a nightlight. Okay, so it wasn't quite like THAT, but whatever. Anyway, The Chelsea Whistle is the story of a girl growing up in a run-down Boston suburb (Chelsea). The book is told Michelle-style - stream-of-consciousness writing that makes you feel like she's sitting on your broken couch talking to you. She writes about her first experiences with race/ism, sexual experiences, abuse, class issues, and Catholic school, all in a biographical story that's really, really hard to put down.

Maybe Michelle will write another book when she's done touring with the Sex Workers Art Show. Speaking of, if it's coming to your town, you should go see it because it's really amazing.

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Summary: Growing up can be painful...
Review: Tea's memoir is an amazing glimpse of a teenager's life in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Being a fellow New Englander I can hang onto every word she says and feel that is sad but true. Tea bases the book around her insanely complicated family life, while adding snippets of inner city adventures. Serious and funny she pulls you through a whirlwind of emotions and issues without asking you to sympathize with her.
She lives through a divorce, her step-father's harassment and deals with being a lesbian in a place where there is no such thing. It is a quick read and well worth it.

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Summary: Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant!
Review: What an incredible coming-of-age story. Michelle Tea's ability to capture that awkward period of adolescence is downright uncanny. She describes, better than anyone I've ever read, what it feels like to grow up confused--both proud and ashamed of who you are and where you come from.
Her story is full of such vivid characters (like her alcoholic, Polish father who eats tripe & keilbasa) and heartbreaking stories (same dad throwing her, her mother, & her sister out of the house, onto the street) that you constantly have to remind yourself that this is a memoir and not just a sensationalistic piece of fiction. It is truly entertaining. It is also quite inspiring--that despite Tea's obstacles and lack of opportunities growing up, she is still able to craft such a vivid and eloquent account of her life. What a talent.