Fourteen year old Pella Marsh and her two younger brothers move with their failed politician father to a new planet following the death of their mother.

The planet is populated by small groups of human settlers, and one human city, as well as by its original occupants the Arch-Builders and the household deer, the former of whom can speak English, and the latter of which are almost ghostly and hard to notice.

The humans take pills to ward off a change related to the Arch-Builders that comes on with puberty, but Pella's father doesn't want his children to take the medication, curious to see what will happen.

Thinking that perhaps his political experience will be useful, Pella's father settles the family into a small outpost community where, despite seeming friendliness, suspicion is more the norm. Pella soon begins to experience some unusual symptoms, and is disturbed by the leading questions and knowing looks from one of the less than pleasant men in the community.

Misunderstandings between species are inevitable, and Lethem's tale of human interaction with each other and with an alien culture is ultimately unsurprisingly dark. ( )

I want to mention, but skip over aspects of Girl in landscape likely to be covered by other reviewers. It certainly stands out because of its genre bending of Western and Science Fiction tale. It is clearly an homage of sorts to The Searchers. It is other aspects of the book that made it very moving to read.

It should not be overlooked that it is a wonderful coming-of-age story (or bildungsromane to quote the German literary term). Pella Marsh is a young woman forced to grow up far too quickly and reading her story is like being in her head feeling all those raw hormone-infused teenage emotions. Lethem does a wonderful job writing from a young girl’s perspective. Pella is believable if sometimes unpredictable. There is a wonderful trope of shifting and metamorphosis, becoming something a bit alien after moving to an alien planet. This fits in well as a metaphor of a child becoming an adult in the jarring manner Pella endures.

The Marsh children’s mother dies suddenly early in the book as a result of a fast metastasizing brain tumor. This could have easily tanked into V. C. Andrews level sentimentality if it not where for Lethem’s own life experiences. His own mother died in the same manner when he was about Pella’s age so this theme arises frequently in his fiction as it did in almost exactly the same manner in The Fortress of Solitude. His personal experience of this pain lends a certain weight of gravitas to Pella’s story.

What struck me most singularly however was Lethem’s near perfect treatment of the group psychology of children and adolescents. The young characters in this book behave so realistically, you may find yourself flashing back to long hot afternoons on the playground. I would recommend reading and discussion of this book to child psychology students, despite its Science Fiction trappings. ( )

“Girl in Landscape” by Jonathan Letham is the story of a young girl, Pella Marsh, who is forced to become the adult in her family, first in the end of our world and later in an unknown world.

There are slivers of truth and insight in this book that pierced my heart.

“You shouldn’t talk to someone like they were a baby when the subject was brain tumors, Pella thought. If you thought they were still a baby you shouldn’t discuss brain tumors, and if you didn’t think they were still a baby, you shouldn’t talk that way. But Pella didn’t know how to tell Dr. Flinch to stop.”

Thirteen year old Pella has to grow up far faster than she should, and realizes hard truths about her father and the world that is left to them. “Then Pella’s anger overtook her pity. Clement and Diana had betrayed her. It was Pella who was most alone in the end, knowing all she knew. She was in charge of Clement’s aloneness, but he’d abandoned Pella to hers.”

Clement, Pella’s father, is a shell of a man, once powerful, now abandoned by a world that has moved on and by the death of his wife. He is unable to adapt to his circumstances and vacates his position as the head of the household.

After the death of Caitlin, the Marsh family leaves post-apocalyptic Earth to a new planet, inhabited by The Archbuilders. Once the family arrives, this novel drifted for me – still showing moments of beauty and truth, but these are buried in the story like the ruins left by previous Archbuilders.

The wonder in this book comes through Pella’s eyes, through the clarity she finds about her father, even when consumed by grief.

“Clement’s election was something worse, a collective shame, the family entombed like mummies in a sarcophagus of denial, imagining the polls weren’t saying what they were, pretending not to overhear the phone calls, not to feel Clement’s radiant dread. Then a truly pathetic night spent milling in a shabby ballroom, eying monitors, enduring sympathies first masked then slowly unmasked, like a party with the guest of honor gradually dying . Caitlin got drunk at the end, and Clement, unforgivably, didn’t, instead, stood clear-eyed and patronizing with a hand in Caitlin’s hair as if to steady her, gazing self-pityingly off towards some imaginary frontier.”

That new frontier held some interest for me, but the real treasure of this book is in Pella’s mind and heart. ( )

Wasn't I just at a Book Sale...arrrgh!! The temptation! The horror!

The genre-bending Lethem's science-fiction/western novel. Somewhat confused, but redeemed by some very cool ideas and good writing. ( )