Customer Reviews

The Chelsea Whistle

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I never really thought about Amazon editing these reviews but in my last review I wrote the word b**!&#t and it was not posted. So this time I will write more nicely....

Michelle Tea's memoir is no b**!&#t in its honesty and brutality about the growing up of girls. I worked in a reformatory school for girls in a new England town, an experience that scarred me (and I think the girls too) as the 12-17 year olds I worked with were labeled naughty and dirty although with only one clear exception had been more damaged than damaging. Every day the girls were given five minutes to shower and another thirty minutes to dry and curl and spray their hair....to socially conform or face punishment.

Which is to say Tea's memoir strikes me as true to a specific time and place and yet surprisingly, humanely funny. As in the chapter where she talks about her elementary school fear of being pulled aside by a high schooler and hooked on drugs with the use of a mickey mouse stamp with LSD on the back. The kind of rumors and paranoia and fear that waft through small towns in America waft through this memoir and each chapter contains beautiful and true minutia about the props and tenderness and toughness of girlhood.

Like maybe all good memoirs, Tea's childhood story outlines a betrayal....despite all her best intentions to stay free of the harms, microbes and miscreants lurking on the outskirts of her world, to not cause her overworked underpaid mother more trouble, a betrayal from within. I won't say more here except that the way she writes about this experience is fresh, poetic and clear. Those who criticise the ending seem to want something that non-fiction can't provide, which is clear closure. The concept of closure is nice, but rare in long-lived family dramas. And for those who think her experiences are too dramatic or made up, I disagree. The shame and fear and dirt of families written about here seems as true as any narration I've encountered.

I wish sometimes that there could be a bridge...that in high school rich kids or middle class children who don't have to face this fundamental struggle of their right to exist could read more of the stories of children who have to start running from a very early age just to make it "out" of a tight web of poverty and family violence. I found this story to be hopeful, not because Tea's girlhood is tied up with a pink ribbon at the end, but because she's survived to write this account, we know the "ending" isn't the real ending of her story, just a step. And that her struggle as dirty and ugly (and at times hilarious) as it was has also been successful.

I recommend this book to people of both genders, grown up or growing up who are able to contemplate the real life fears and tribulations of a real (not sanitized, doll-ified) american girlhood. Also recommended for fans of Judy Blume.

What can I say about Michelle Tea and her writing that hasn't already been said in a positive light? She is the most honest, unafraid writer I have ever had the pleasure to read, and The Chelsea Whistle is a daring, heartbreaking, wonderful continuation of her life story. Her writing is beautiful, everflowing and wonderfully descriptive. She pulls no punches, neither to protect herself nor to protect or punish the people around her. The thing I love best about her writing is the picture she presents of a whole person; she trusts her audience to see truth in whatever way they find it. She is able to pull words from the dark places in her that are universal but never said--she makes the whole human experience come to life in the way that we all know it in our hearts, and she does not purport to be special in her own experience. I don't know what Publisher's Weekly read, but I did not find her writing choppy, and if the ending is disappointing, it is only that her character is not done growing, as perhaps the PW reviewer hopes for. Michelle's is a life in progress, and I cannot wait to read the next chapter.

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.

In her disturbing, funny, and often lyrical memoir, Tea effectively captures the ugliness and grit of our shared hometown (two writers from Chelsea, Massachusetts--it's a miracle!). I'm not sure if an outsider would have the same reaction, but I could see every detail clearly as her prose triggered buried memories of places and a way of life I've gladly left behind. The dominant emotion of the memoir is anger, and very understandably, given the backward culture of Chelsea. But then Tea completely startles with passages of poetic description--always maintaining her tone, skating that fine line to avoid falling into sentimentality. The tension between her tough persona and the beautifully expressed insights sustains the story, adding layers of intriguing complexity.

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.

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.

This book is sick with reality. I have to admit that I've not read any other of Ms. Tea's books so I had no expectations when I cracked it open. For someone like myself that grew up in a less-than-perfect world the book becomes a hilarious reflection - my most repressed embarrassments of youth were unearthed. The Chelsea Whistle has a wonderful balance of humor and darkness. The clarity of her words remind me of a female David Sedaris.

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.

This book paints the picture of the city in the shadows of Boston and all that comes with growing up, living, and working there. I would recommend this book if you want a detailed portrayal of the forgotten city past the Tobin Bridge! Also recommend LEAVES OF RED AND GOLD by Scott Chapman.

tea's first two memoirs are full of action and sesationalistic experiences with lovers, drugs and prostitution. where you really find out about the skills of a writer is their ability to make the quieter, less thrilling moments of life interesting. tea's ability to do this is best discribed as average. though i appreciate her story of growing up working class in a poor neighborhood outside of boston, it was somewhat of a struggle to get through this book. i would venture to suggest that tea is certainly an important voice in young, queer culture, she's just not always so well spoken.