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A Map of Tulsa
A stunning debut novel of first love set against the art scene of late-90s Tulsa by a former New Yorker editorial staffer.
The first days of summer: Jim Praley is home from college, ready to unlock Tulsa's secrets. He drives the highways. He forces himself to get out of his car and walk into a bar. He's invited to a party. And there he meets Adrienne Booker; Adrienne rules Tulsa, in her way. A high-school dropout with a penthouse apartment, she takes a curious interest in Jim. Through her eyes, he will rediscover his hometown: its wasted sprawl, the beauty of its late nights, and, at the city's center, the unsleeping light of its skyscrapers.
In the tradition of Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Map of Tulsa is elegiac, graceful, and as much a story about young love as it is a love letter to a classic American city.
The first days of summer: Jim Praley is home from college, ready to unlock Tulsa's secrets. He drives the highways. He forces himself to get out of his car and walk into a bar. He's invited to a party. And there he meets Adrienne Booker; Adrienne rules Tulsa, in her way. A high-school dropout with a penthouse apartment, she takes a curious interest in Jim. Through her eyes, he will rediscover his hometown: its wasted sprawl, the beauty of its late nights, and, at the city's center, the unsleeping light of its skyscrapers.
In the tradition of Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Map of Tulsa is elegiac, graceful, and as much a story about young love as it is a love letter to a classic American city.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 105 reviews
June 14, 2013
Maybe I'm too close to the setting of this book, being from Tulsa, to fairly review it. I thought it was basically terrible. I was excited to see Tulsa brought to life but I recognized nothing more than some clumsy signifiers of Tulsa landmarks. Despite the fact that the author grew up here, I felt like he lacked insight into the nature of the city. The geography of Tulsa is (ironically enough) muddled and inaccurate so residents will be unsatisfied. On the flipside, he makes a lot of unexplained references to Oklahoma/Tulsa things without providing any context that would befuddle those without any experience of the place. However, the true fault is that the book is just not well written. The author clearly has literary pretensions, but I suspect he's a hack. His metaphors and similes are outrageously bad. An example of what the text holds: "And when it rose, the morning sun smelled like acorns & dirty jeans." What does that even mean? Anything? And that's probably one of the better lines in the book. The prose is choppy, hard to follow, and mired in its own pretensions. The characters are thinly drawn and inscrutable in their motivations. Tulsa deserves better.
June 27, 2013
There are two good things I can say about Benjamin Lytal’s debut novel, A Map of Tulsa. First, it has a beautiful cover (too bad the author can’t take credit for that!). Second, it was short and did not take long for me to read. It’s unfortunate that the novel had such a beautiful cover because it raised my expectations, but it’s fortunate that it was short because I hated every minute of it. Since it was short I decided I had to at least finish it since I planned on ripping it apart. To all potential readers of A Map of Tulsa”: DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME!
I can break down why I hated the novel into three categories: the style of writing, the narrator, and the “love” interest.
1)Style of Writing: Lytal is a pretentious writer. He crafts his sentences to make them “beautiful” but it reads like he is trying too hard and is full of himself. Lytal does not seem to have a grasp on female characters, and he cannot write “real” girls to save his life. Lytal used a lot of symbolism that feel flat. Maybe if I was familiar with Tulsa, some of it would have made more sense, but I struggled to even remember where Tulsa was (Oklahoma). He never described the city in a larger context for the non-natives. As it was the city was empty and kind of sounded like any city that is not New York, Chicago, or Boston. The symbolism of the Booker skyscraper reminds me of the green light at the end of the dock in The Great Gatsby. Overall, the story reminded me of a poorly written and conceptualized Great Gatsby. The style of writing is not helped by the fact that the narrator, Jim Praley, is a self-centered idiot.
2)Jim Praley (Narrator): I hate Jim Praley. There is nothing redeeming about him. He has a relationship with a girl for one summer, and he feels like their relationship made him important and that in one summer he learned all there is to Adrianna Booker. He comes back to Tulsa three or four years after their summer fling of art, walking, and poetry and he acts as if he is one of the closest people to the “real” Adrianna, but I don’t think he even knew Adrianna during that summer. He used Adrianna to fill something in himself and didn’t place any consideration on her. Their relationship seemed to be poetical and artsy and intense, but it was also completely on the surface. He places too much importance on their relationship. There is no depth to Jim Praley’s character. Adrianna is the love of his life and he only saw beauty and genius, but everyone else said she was crazy. He never saw her as a person but only as a caricature. She fulfilled something for him that had nothing to do with who she was. I think he is egotistical and self-aggrandizing, but he was at moments also really insecure. His pompous style seemed to counteract his boyish naivety and insecurity because in the end, he is just a boy who doesn’t know what he is doing.
3)Adrianna Booker (the love interest): Adrianna Booker is the daughter of one of the wealthiest oil families in Tulsa. She didn’t graduate from high school, she never earned a living, and she had no responsibility. She was completely one-dimensional and unreal. This may be because Jim, whose POV we are subject to, never saw her as anything but a muse for his own self-importance. Adrianna in the story is an embarrassment to woman everywhere.
I really despised everything about this novel. As of right now (June 25, 2013) it is the worst book I’ve read this year. I’m not sure what Lytal was trying to get across in his novel, but whatever it was it completely feel flat. Lytal could have potential as a writer if he would stop trying so hard. I just hope Benjamin Lytal is nothing like his protagonist, Jim Praley. If he is, I’m sorry and he needs to grow up.
I can break down why I hated the novel into three categories: the style of writing, the narrator, and the “love” interest.
1)Style of Writing: Lytal is a pretentious writer. He crafts his sentences to make them “beautiful” but it reads like he is trying too hard and is full of himself. Lytal does not seem to have a grasp on female characters, and he cannot write “real” girls to save his life. Lytal used a lot of symbolism that feel flat. Maybe if I was familiar with Tulsa, some of it would have made more sense, but I struggled to even remember where Tulsa was (Oklahoma). He never described the city in a larger context for the non-natives. As it was the city was empty and kind of sounded like any city that is not New York, Chicago, or Boston. The symbolism of the Booker skyscraper reminds me of the green light at the end of the dock in The Great Gatsby. Overall, the story reminded me of a poorly written and conceptualized Great Gatsby. The style of writing is not helped by the fact that the narrator, Jim Praley, is a self-centered idiot.
2)Jim Praley (Narrator): I hate Jim Praley. There is nothing redeeming about him. He has a relationship with a girl for one summer, and he feels like their relationship made him important and that in one summer he learned all there is to Adrianna Booker. He comes back to Tulsa three or four years after their summer fling of art, walking, and poetry and he acts as if he is one of the closest people to the “real” Adrianna, but I don’t think he even knew Adrianna during that summer. He used Adrianna to fill something in himself and didn’t place any consideration on her. Their relationship seemed to be poetical and artsy and intense, but it was also completely on the surface. He places too much importance on their relationship. There is no depth to Jim Praley’s character. Adrianna is the love of his life and he only saw beauty and genius, but everyone else said she was crazy. He never saw her as a person but only as a caricature. She fulfilled something for him that had nothing to do with who she was. I think he is egotistical and self-aggrandizing, but he was at moments also really insecure. His pompous style seemed to counteract his boyish naivety and insecurity because in the end, he is just a boy who doesn’t know what he is doing.
3)Adrianna Booker (the love interest): Adrianna Booker is the daughter of one of the wealthiest oil families in Tulsa. She didn’t graduate from high school, she never earned a living, and she had no responsibility. She was completely one-dimensional and unreal. This may be because Jim, whose POV we are subject to, never saw her as anything but a muse for his own self-importance. Adrianna in the story is an embarrassment to woman everywhere.
I really despised everything about this novel. As of right now (June 25, 2013) it is the worst book I’ve read this year. I’m not sure what Lytal was trying to get across in his novel, but whatever it was it completely feel flat. Lytal could have potential as a writer if he would stop trying so hard. I just hope Benjamin Lytal is nothing like his protagonist, Jim Praley. If he is, I’m sorry and he needs to grow up.
April 28, 2013
Wow. I mean, pretty much fantastic. Not a perfect book, but definitely an excellent one, and for a debut novel, damn. This guy is definitely someone to watch, and unless he pulls a Josh Ferris, following an excellent debut with a concept so ridiculous only the author's mom could appreciate it, Lytal will go places.
Anyway, this is a pretty smart book, and not unlike Teju Cole's Open City, though it replaces most of the intellect and philosophy with emotion. It's really difficult to write about young love without coming off saccharine, disingenuous, or jaded, and Lytal is never any of these. There is the sense that his narrator knows he was young and naive, but there's that wonderfully straddled line of not really being able to tell whether he (narrator) fully and wholeheartedly believes he loved what he loved and what he shared with her/it was incredible, or whether it was just dumb and young and the whole thing was grandiose and naive. It's a delicate and wonderful balance, and Lytal pulls it off I'd say masterfully. There are some scenes here that we've seen a million times, and somehow he makes them work, and work really well.
Stylewise, Lytal nails the dialogue. This is, I'd say, pretty much exactly how people in their twenties talk, with "likes" peppered perfectly throughout, with statements that end with ", so." and with sentences like "I mean." Really good dialogue. And just really great descriptions of place. I mean yeah, this is definitely a love story about a person and a place, and how the two are sort of inextricable, and how you're not even sure which the narrator truly loves. Or both, obviously, but. Anyway the language throughout is great. Not overwritten, just really well written.
I dunno. Unique, good language, lots of momentum and no lingering on bullshit. Not to say it's a page turner or fast or anything, or that it's not, just that Lytal knows when to leave a scene. Good book.
Anyway, this is a pretty smart book, and not unlike Teju Cole's Open City, though it replaces most of the intellect and philosophy with emotion. It's really difficult to write about young love without coming off saccharine, disingenuous, or jaded, and Lytal is never any of these. There is the sense that his narrator knows he was young and naive, but there's that wonderfully straddled line of not really being able to tell whether he (narrator) fully and wholeheartedly believes he loved what he loved and what he shared with her/it was incredible, or whether it was just dumb and young and the whole thing was grandiose and naive. It's a delicate and wonderful balance, and Lytal pulls it off I'd say masterfully. There are some scenes here that we've seen a million times, and somehow he makes them work, and work really well.
Stylewise, Lytal nails the dialogue. This is, I'd say, pretty much exactly how people in their twenties talk, with "likes" peppered perfectly throughout, with statements that end with ", so." and with sentences like "I mean." Really good dialogue. And just really great descriptions of place. I mean yeah, this is definitely a love story about a person and a place, and how the two are sort of inextricable, and how you're not even sure which the narrator truly loves. Or both, obviously, but. Anyway the language throughout is great. Not overwritten, just really well written.
I dunno. Unique, good language, lots of momentum and no lingering on bullshit. Not to say it's a page turner or fast or anything, or that it's not, just that Lytal knows when to leave a scene. Good book.
December 30, 2013
My husband is from Tulsa and I happened to see this while browsing the local B&N. Being that I have been to Tulsa pretty often, I have had its charms pointed out to me by my husband enough where the small city intrigues me. I always get the feeling that I don't belong there; like Tulsa is some big secret I'm not in on. Always curious, I had to pick up a copy of this.
I went from being intrigued by this book to hating it, to making the commitment to plod through it, to tolerating it, to REALLY HATING it...to getting thoroughly lost in it by the end; Such an odd progression of emotions to go through in a reading.
What made this one hard to handle was that the protagonist is so thoroughly unlikeable. You never really get a sense of who this guy is except for that he is a hipster. Just like any hipster, he doesn't want to admit he's a hipster. The protagonist truly thinks he's unique. Oh boy. I was hoping he was going to meet some down-to-earth girl who would drag him out of himself...but nope. He will go on to meet Queen Hipster and soon end up absorbed in their mutual self absorption. Wonderful.
I think I had to go back and re-read the first 10 pages twice because, in great attempts to be "literary" the author went a little crazy with similes and metaphors. Unlike Janet Fitch (one of the best contemporary authors in dealings with similes/metaphors), the metaphors just don't paint the right picture and come off awkward. I give the author a lot of credit for trying here. It is a difficult thing to paint the mood, feel, scent, sound, texture of a scene, an object, or an emotion in these terms. Some of them were beautiful, but occasionally, there were some real clunkers that completely ruined the mood and pacing and were laughably bad. It was like being in a gallery and running into a black velvet Elvis next to a Renoir [I am now trying my hand at being overly metaphoric]. Some of the descriptions were jarring. Overall, I'm happy to see someone trying their hand at this style and hoping in the next novel the lyrical tone will flow without bizarre descriptions of what someone's backbone looks like while dancing, etc.
Throughout the novel, the protagonist's Beta Male limps weakly around Adrienne Booker's bland blandness and cold bitchiness. There is nothing about Adrienne Booker to love. She is SO hipster, she doesn't love. She just does bizarre things and expects Jim to follow her like a puppy dog, which he does.
All the while, we are reminded about the most obnoxious reference in the entire novel - Jim is going to COLLEGE and Adrienne isn't. Every other page is a reference to college and how Jim thinks he's better than Adrienne because he's going to college. Fair warning for those who haven't been to college: It is the opinion of at least 3 characters in this book that those who do not go to college are a waste of space. I wonder if this echoes the author's opinion? There are some pretty strongly worded ideas about people who don't go to college.
One character is in an accident. About that other character, another dismisses the accident and says it's because that character didn't go to college. She actually says, "That's actually how life works. You go up or you go down."
In another scene:
"And that she didn't go to college-to never go in the first place, you know, in our day and age. It blew my mind."
"Because it's stupid."
And then they go on to talk about how you have to be loaded to not get a college degree. Do they ever, for a second, stop to think about the people who AREN'T loaded so they CAN'T get a degree because of other life and financial responsibilities? Anyway, be forewarned. The collegiate snobbery gets so thick you need boots and only contributes more to one of the most thoroughly unlikeable cast of characters I've read. My father-in-law made a pretty good success of himself in Tulsa...and he didn't possess a degree. He was a business OWNER though and didn't go get a degree to work for someone else. Somehow, I think he'd take offense to the painting of Tulsa as a collegiate dumping ground of douchebaggery.
I didn't see enough of the beloved Tulsa that we have come to know. Much of it seems to take place in the downtown area...which, admittedly, is pretty dead. I wouldn't buy it for the Tulsa references. This isn't where the novel shines. It shines in fluid writing, with a few blemishes that interrupt the flow such as bad similes/metaphors as mentioned earlier, but then there were the HUGE speedbumps when writing about sex and drugs entered the picture.
Ugh. I just wish I could beg the author to stop. Reading about this protagonist's sexual escapades is like reading about a sexually frustrated chihuahua trying to mount a border collie...and when the stupid labrador the border collie hangs out with gets in the way, the chihuahua mounts the labrador, too, to "show him who's boss". I wish I was kidding with my own bad similes and metaphors.
Nobody wants to read about hipster sex. Nobody. Even hipsters are too cool to read about hipster sex. Women also never want to read something like "I bit her nipples". Just stop! Instead of giving details, why not give a blindingly brilliant metaphor for the sex act and leave it at that.
Overall, I hated the characters, I didn't believe the romance, the ridiculous descriptions drove me crazy, and the insulting of non-collegiate folks was WAY over the top...but there was something to be treasured in the closing of the book. The last quarter of it had me reading attentively and genuinely touched because the writing was good even if the relationship was shallow and not realistic. You have to suspend disbelief and pretend there was something worth cherishing there that the author just couldn't convey about the relationship because the writing in the last quarter of the book was quite mesmerizing.
A very promising author-in-the-making once he masters literary voice (seemed he was getting better at this in the end of the novel) and maybe knocks the collegiate chip off his shoulder?
I went from being intrigued by this book to hating it, to making the commitment to plod through it, to tolerating it, to REALLY HATING it...to getting thoroughly lost in it by the end; Such an odd progression of emotions to go through in a reading.
What made this one hard to handle was that the protagonist is so thoroughly unlikeable. You never really get a sense of who this guy is except for that he is a hipster. Just like any hipster, he doesn't want to admit he's a hipster. The protagonist truly thinks he's unique. Oh boy. I was hoping he was going to meet some down-to-earth girl who would drag him out of himself...but nope. He will go on to meet Queen Hipster and soon end up absorbed in their mutual self absorption. Wonderful.
I think I had to go back and re-read the first 10 pages twice because, in great attempts to be "literary" the author went a little crazy with similes and metaphors. Unlike Janet Fitch (one of the best contemporary authors in dealings with similes/metaphors), the metaphors just don't paint the right picture and come off awkward. I give the author a lot of credit for trying here. It is a difficult thing to paint the mood, feel, scent, sound, texture of a scene, an object, or an emotion in these terms. Some of them were beautiful, but occasionally, there were some real clunkers that completely ruined the mood and pacing and were laughably bad. It was like being in a gallery and running into a black velvet Elvis next to a Renoir [I am now trying my hand at being overly metaphoric]. Some of the descriptions were jarring. Overall, I'm happy to see someone trying their hand at this style and hoping in the next novel the lyrical tone will flow without bizarre descriptions of what someone's backbone looks like while dancing, etc.
Throughout the novel, the protagonist's Beta Male limps weakly around Adrienne Booker's bland blandness and cold bitchiness. There is nothing about Adrienne Booker to love. She is SO hipster, she doesn't love. She just does bizarre things and expects Jim to follow her like a puppy dog, which he does.
All the while, we are reminded about the most obnoxious reference in the entire novel - Jim is going to COLLEGE and Adrienne isn't. Every other page is a reference to college and how Jim thinks he's better than Adrienne because he's going to college. Fair warning for those who haven't been to college: It is the opinion of at least 3 characters in this book that those who do not go to college are a waste of space. I wonder if this echoes the author's opinion? There are some pretty strongly worded ideas about people who don't go to college.
One character is in an accident. About that other character, another dismisses the accident and says it's because that character didn't go to college. She actually says, "That's actually how life works. You go up or you go down."
In another scene:
"And that she didn't go to college-to never go in the first place, you know, in our day and age. It blew my mind."
"Because it's stupid."
And then they go on to talk about how you have to be loaded to not get a college degree. Do they ever, for a second, stop to think about the people who AREN'T loaded so they CAN'T get a degree because of other life and financial responsibilities? Anyway, be forewarned. The collegiate snobbery gets so thick you need boots and only contributes more to one of the most thoroughly unlikeable cast of characters I've read. My father-in-law made a pretty good success of himself in Tulsa...and he didn't possess a degree. He was a business OWNER though and didn't go get a degree to work for someone else. Somehow, I think he'd take offense to the painting of Tulsa as a collegiate dumping ground of douchebaggery.
I didn't see enough of the beloved Tulsa that we have come to know. Much of it seems to take place in the downtown area...which, admittedly, is pretty dead. I wouldn't buy it for the Tulsa references. This isn't where the novel shines. It shines in fluid writing, with a few blemishes that interrupt the flow such as bad similes/metaphors as mentioned earlier, but then there were the HUGE speedbumps when writing about sex and drugs entered the picture.
Ugh. I just wish I could beg the author to stop. Reading about this protagonist's sexual escapades is like reading about a sexually frustrated chihuahua trying to mount a border collie...and when the stupid labrador the border collie hangs out with gets in the way, the chihuahua mounts the labrador, too, to "show him who's boss". I wish I was kidding with my own bad similes and metaphors.
Nobody wants to read about hipster sex. Nobody. Even hipsters are too cool to read about hipster sex. Women also never want to read something like "I bit her nipples". Just stop! Instead of giving details, why not give a blindingly brilliant metaphor for the sex act and leave it at that.
Overall, I hated the characters, I didn't believe the romance, the ridiculous descriptions drove me crazy, and the insulting of non-collegiate folks was WAY over the top...but there was something to be treasured in the closing of the book. The last quarter of it had me reading attentively and genuinely touched because the writing was good even if the relationship was shallow and not realistic. You have to suspend disbelief and pretend there was something worth cherishing there that the author just couldn't convey about the relationship because the writing in the last quarter of the book was quite mesmerizing.
A very promising author-in-the-making once he masters literary voice (seemed he was getting better at this in the end of the novel) and maybe knocks the collegiate chip off his shoulder?
May 1, 2013
2.5 stars. I’ve marked this “Young Adult” though that’s not strictly true. The first half veers toward YA the second half not as much. Perhaps it falls into the dreaded “New Adult” category now entering our consciousness.
I bought this because of the word Tulsa. Strange, I know. My (big, huge, loud) family is from Oklahoma and though we’re the renegade Californians I feel a connection to the area. I find it mystifying and yet fascinating at the same time. From the book: “I may have agreed, when people smiled, and pretended that Tulsa was a minor classic, a Western, a bastion of Republican moonshine and a hotbed, equally, of a kind of honky-tonk bonhomie.” Love it. However, though this is supposed to be a bit of a guide book/love letter to the city I did not feel Tulsa the way I expected to. Admittedly, I haven’t spent much time there so residents might respond differently.
So, the characters. College kid Jim stumbles into some bar while home on summer break and ends up seeing former high school classmates who in turn reintroduce him to the enchanting Adrienne. Fling ensues, though it’s more than a fling as he loves her deeply. I’m not sure what else to say without giving away the only real spoiler in the book. Prior to the alleged plot twist, there is a lot of sex in Adrienne’s penthouse in the sky, which seems at odds with Tulsa but maybe I’m wrong or maybe that’s the point (the penthouse part, not the sex).
This is a fast enough read. The writing is strong and vivid. Alas I didn’t really care about Jim or Adrienne and certainly not about them together. The best character is Adrienne’s aunt Lydia and she is woefully underused. I rate this by the stricted definition of Good Reads 2-star reviews. "It was ok."
I bought this because of the word Tulsa. Strange, I know. My (big, huge, loud) family is from Oklahoma and though we’re the renegade Californians I feel a connection to the area. I find it mystifying and yet fascinating at the same time. From the book: “I may have agreed, when people smiled, and pretended that Tulsa was a minor classic, a Western, a bastion of Republican moonshine and a hotbed, equally, of a kind of honky-tonk bonhomie.” Love it. However, though this is supposed to be a bit of a guide book/love letter to the city I did not feel Tulsa the way I expected to. Admittedly, I haven’t spent much time there so residents might respond differently.
So, the characters. College kid Jim stumbles into some bar while home on summer break and ends up seeing former high school classmates who in turn reintroduce him to the enchanting Adrienne. Fling ensues, though it’s more than a fling as he loves her deeply. I’m not sure what else to say without giving away the only real spoiler in the book. Prior to the alleged plot twist, there is a lot of sex in Adrienne’s penthouse in the sky, which seems at odds with Tulsa but maybe I’m wrong or maybe that’s the point (the penthouse part, not the sex).
This is a fast enough read. The writing is strong and vivid. Alas I didn’t really care about Jim or Adrienne and certainly not about them together. The best character is Adrienne’s aunt Lydia and she is woefully underused. I rate this by the stricted definition of Good Reads 2-star reviews. "It was ok."
March 30, 2013
The writing is rich and lovely, but in the end I never feel like I really get to know any of the characters, nor do I know what's going on. It's odd, because the story is told from Jim's point of view, and yet I never really feel like I know him, perhaps because he seems to be in such a continuous process of being unsure of who he is, and pretending to be who he thinks he is. In the end he realizes that he never fully opened himself to Adrienne, and I feel like that is true for how he presents himself to the reader as well. Adrienne herself is also not fully clear to me; I feel like Jim is always telling the reader about Adrienne, but we don't really "see" these things in what Adrienne herself says and does, she seems so inconsistent and mythical. I gather that the novel as a whole is really about more than just a young man being in love with a young woman, but in the end, I'm just not sure what that is. Maybe it's just about him trying to figure out how his hometown has shaped him and who he is in relation to it and the rest of the world.
A lot of the time I feel like not only are Adrienne and Jim speaking to each other in code, in their own private language, but that Jim is also speaking in code to the reader, and that unfortunately this reader does not know how to decipher this code; I felt like a lot of things were going over my head, that they had a significance deeper than their surface meanings that I just didn't get. At times also sentences within the same paragraph seem non-sequential, as if something unstated has happened off the page, or as if sentences had accidentally been deleted.
A lot of the time I feel like not only are Adrienne and Jim speaking to each other in code, in their own private language, but that Jim is also speaking in code to the reader, and that unfortunately this reader does not know how to decipher this code; I felt like a lot of things were going over my head, that they had a significance deeper than their surface meanings that I just didn't get. At times also sentences within the same paragraph seem non-sequential, as if something unstated has happened off the page, or as if sentences had accidentally been deleted.
January 28, 2016
This is basically the terrifically bad movie "garden state" rendered as a terrifically bad book. The narrator is an aspiring poet on summer break after his freshman year of college. He meets a quirky painter and they begin dating. There are endless tedious anecdotes about all the quirky and creative and artistic things they do together. I'm not really sure how this ended up in my to read pile. It's about as lightweight and see through as books get.
October 8, 2013
It’s rare that I am more embarrassed for than hate the author of a bad book. Don’t get me wrong, of course. I do hate this book. The characters are flat, and the writing style even with its odd MFA-approved flourishes may as well be for all the effect it has on the reader. The story itself makes Erich Segal’s Love Story seem daring and innovative. All these things give me ample reason to let my hate flow through me. It’s about the only bit of catharsis I could possibly get from it.
No, what makes me embarrassed for Lytal is that he thought writing a novel about a young man with literary pretensions coming back to his (and the author’s and my own, while we’re at it) hometown from New York and experiencing a whirlwind summer romance was a good idea. Why did no one at any point talk him out of this? This is what agents and editors are for. This is what friends and colleagues are for. And yet, he somehow managed to make it through the entire process of conception, writing, re-writing, editing, and publication without a single moment of self-awareness, of realizing that all of this had been done before and better by people who actually had something to say. Reading A Map of Tulsa all one takes away is a dull and hackneyed story and characters one cannot possibly care about, let alone for, and an understanding of the titular city that barely extends beyond its local gas stations and Wal-Marts.
No, what makes me embarrassed for Lytal is that he thought writing a novel about a young man with literary pretensions coming back to his (and the author’s and my own, while we’re at it) hometown from New York and experiencing a whirlwind summer romance was a good idea. Why did no one at any point talk him out of this? This is what agents and editors are for. This is what friends and colleagues are for. And yet, he somehow managed to make it through the entire process of conception, writing, re-writing, editing, and publication without a single moment of self-awareness, of realizing that all of this had been done before and better by people who actually had something to say. Reading A Map of Tulsa all one takes away is a dull and hackneyed story and characters one cannot possibly care about, let alone for, and an understanding of the titular city that barely extends beyond its local gas stations and Wal-Marts.
April 26, 2013
There is a style of writing popular today in which the author feels it necessary to enumerate every sociological item present in each moment. These are the kinds of things that writers notice, the bored looks, the necklaced women, the clichés present in every gathering. Sometimes, I feel like this kind of writer is showing off: "I noticed these things, and you should have -- in fact, you'll recognize them as I point them out."
This is how Benjamin Lytle writes "A Map of Tulsa." Sometimes, I think I'm the only 21st-century reader who doesn't like this kind of writing, so an apology to those who do. He does this style very well, and the book's going to wind up with lots of nods, lots of notice.
Following a friend's formula of "30 minutes or 30 pages," during which the author must grab me, or I quit, I chose the coward's way out. It just wasn't for me.
This is how Benjamin Lytle writes "A Map of Tulsa." Sometimes, I think I'm the only 21st-century reader who doesn't like this kind of writing, so an apology to those who do. He does this style very well, and the book's going to wind up with lots of nods, lots of notice.
Following a friend's formula of "30 minutes or 30 pages," during which the author must grab me, or I quit, I chose the coward's way out. It just wasn't for me.
June 7, 2013
Selfishly and totally reader-response-ily of me, I enjoyed this book because I recognized so many of the physical places in the book - The Philbrook, Promenade, the Brady District, The Center of the Universe and more form a fitting backdrop, given the title. This book definitely has some "boy with issues" about it, but really, it's about the old adage that you can't ever go home once you leave. It's about the main character's struggle to realize that the Tulsa he's idealized isn't ever going to live up to his memories. And though it portends to be a love story, the deeper level is the love of the main character with a home that doesn't exist, an interstitial character who belongs neither here nor there and won't choose to truly commit to an existence in either. Some lovely writing, I'd give it 3 and a half if I could.
July 6, 2013
It is not necessarily a bad thing for a novel to strain credulity. One could even make a case that good fiction should do that. But, there is a problem when a character, especially a central character, is unbelievable. That is the case in this novel. The narrator's girl friend, Adrienne, is simply unbelievable as depicted. You read about her being a high school drop out and then about her poise, her powers of concentration, her insights, and the reaction is "Oh, come on!"
My other main reaction is that the author is working too hard to come up with catchy descriptions and metaphors. He is trying too hard and it shows.
All in all, not that impressive.
My other main reaction is that the author is working too hard to come up with catchy descriptions and metaphors. He is trying too hard and it shows.
All in all, not that impressive.
March 26, 2013
A Map of Tulsa was okay. I do not feel strongly one way or another about it. I am a long time Tulsan, so I did like seeing my home city portrayed in a positive light. However, I just could not really empathize with the protagonist in the story. One of the few things that stood out for me in the book was when the protag lamented that August was hot. Anyone that has spent any time in Tulsa during the summer knows just what that line means.
April 27, 2013
I wanted to like this first person narrative about a young man and his home town. But the author's decision to use awkward grammar to portray the main character was distracting. I've never seen so many comma splices of completely unrelated clauses in my life.
June 17, 2013
this is a terrific novel that gets youth, ambition and conflicted feelings about home exactly right..I grew up in Tulsa and I recognized it in Lytal's meditation on its emptiness and beauty..the last third of the novel is a bit muddled but his characters and writing made it worth it.
February 13, 2013
He's either a horrible writer or the next literary genius .... Still trying to process it.
Want to read
January 1, 2015A book set in my home town
July 29, 2016
For Jim Praley, college freshman and aspiring poet, his hometown is a kitschy accessory; an aspect of his past that he can patronise or romanticise for effect in the cultural circles he has begun to move in. Tulsa may not quite be a foreign country, but it is sufficiently strange to imbue him with a degree of exoticism, if handled correctly, ‘mentioning at just the right moments that I was raised Southern Baptist, had shot guns recreationally, had been a major Boy Scout’. Although he has only been away for a year, the city has already taken on a fixed impression in his mind, becoming ‘a minor classic, a Western, a bastion of Republican moonshine and a hotbed, equally, of a kind of honky-tonk bonhomie’. Over the course of his debut novel, Benjamin Lytall will examine the way we build up these mental maps of our past, and how radically they can differ from the territory they describe, in a classic American narrative of self-determination and loss.
A summer in Tulsa is a second choice for Praley: ‘my first plan had been to stay at college… I had applied to work on the summer staff of the college newspaper. However, I did not get on. And no other plan or internship materialised’. Returning home, he initially falls into the old traps, mumbling clichés about downtown being ‘dead’, and chatting to school acquaintances. There’s a hint of Nick Carraway to his character; a lack of spark, a willingness to drift through life. Of course, any Carraway needs a Gatsby to fixate on, and Praley finds his in the shape of Adrienne Booker, the scion of an old oil family turned trust-funded artist. The pair meet at a party, where they take ecstasy and run through their neighbours’ gardens, jumping fences, before having sex on the ground as the sun rises.
Adrienne is old money, practically royalty in Tulsa. Her penthouse apartment overlooks the city, perched above the financial empire of Booker Petroleum. Jim admires her ‘aristocratic’ bearing, and the ‘grandeur’ of the apartment they share for the summer, but is also drawn to her unbounded nature. Growing up ‘pretty unsupervised’ she is capable of behaving outrageously (walking naked through downtown, chopping her hair off while singing in a bar), but always remains in control. Working in her studio, she maintains her focus for hours on end, working on her paintings in silence. To Jim, she represents the best of both worlds, able to embody his ideal of bohemianism because she is supported by her family’s name (and money). Together, they exist literally above the grubby world of commerce, able to concentrate on the finer things.
Jim’s developing conception of Tulsa becomes intimately linked to his image of Adrienne; it is from her penthouse window that he looks down on the ‘powerfully overcomplicated circuit board’ of the city and feels he understands it for the first time. For many characters, Jim and Adrienne’s family among them, Tulsa has been a place to escape, to romanticise from a distance. Adrienne stayed though, somehow finding the city sufficient in itself, happy to play the big fish in the small pond. Her existence proves to Jim that exotic creatures can thrive even in such unpromising environments - more, maybe her surroundings and background lend her an added degree of 'authenticity'. Even when he leaves, at the end of that idealised summer, to return to college and then the literary world of New York, Jim is anchored by thoughts of Tulsa, comforted by the knowledge that Adrienne was still there, a vibrant assertion of individuality in this most unglamorous of States.
Five years later, Jim returns to Tulsa, compelled to come back by news that Adrienne has been injured in a motorcycle accident. He entertains ideas of sweeping into town as a homecoming hero, reuniting with Adrienne, maybe even quitting his job and making a life there. It is at that stage that the gap between Jim’s conception of Tulsa and the reality becomes apparent. Rather than coming to a true understanding of the city, he has simply swapped one set of illusions for another. When he returns, he finds that the clique surrounding Adrienne has changed, she is now surrounded by a younger crowd who don’t remember him from his last spell in town. Missing their cultural reference points, Jim struggles to find common ground with this new group, hovering on the margins of their discussions. Instead, he finds himself gravitating towards Adrienne’s parents, a subtle generational shift that he struggles to adapt to.
The reader comes to realise that Jim Praley is not so much an unreliable narrator as a hopelessly gauche one. The idea of privilege is useful here; as a middle-class, educated white man, he struggles to see the world through anyone else’s eyes, constantly imposing his own views on the landscape he surveys. In fact, he turns out to be wrong about almost everything. He thinks that Adrienne is inseparable from Tulsa (instead, shortly after he leaves, she heads to LA); he assumes that Tulsa’s downtown is dead, before being repeatedly shown that it isn’t; he believes he is special in some way for going to College out of state, before learning that many of his classmates did the same. He expresses frustration when his surroundings fail to conform to his worldview: ‘none of the people… seemed to be aware that they were in a movie about social entropy, and missed connections, and loneliness’.
The question of production is very important in Lytall’s narrative. Tulsa is located in the old American heartland, and its oil industry was the basis of the nation’s industrial development, but the city’s economic power waned as the US began to rely more heavily on imported energy. There is discussion of alternative energy sources in the region, a plan to create a series of heat wells across the north of the state, but it is unclear whether this will come to fruition. If it does, it will require the family to cede control of at least part of the company to outsiders, and lay off staff. This malaise is also apparent on an individual level. Although Adrienne is held up by Jim to be an exemplar of artistic endeavour, very little of her work ever sees the light of public display. Around her, Jim finds his own creativity waning (‘my writing went neglected’), and the other man in her life, Chase, moves away to work as a film producer. Eventually even Adrienne will flee the creative sterility of Tulsa, heading West like a true American adventurer. From the cultural hub of New York, Jim can romanticise the spirit of Tulsa, but Lytall undercuts this view; his compatriots who remain there end up with broken backs and bone diseases, fail to live up to their potential. Jim expects the ambiance of their summer together to somehow have permeated the city, but his experiences with Adrienne's new clique reveal the ephemeral nature of those moments.
Fitzgerald stated that there were no second acts in American lives, that individuals were tied to their pasts; Lytall's characters struggle against this notion, but are ultimately sucked back in. As Gatsby learned, the reality of our lives rarely lives up to our expectations. All we can do is keep moving, leave the past behind us, not be lured by the siren call of adolescent summer affairs. The danger of going over old ground is exemplified by Adrienne’s accident. Returning to Tulsa after an absence, she leaves a party on her motorcycle. Driving on autopilot, following her own mental map of the city, she fails to notice a change in the layout of the road, and comes off the bike. Adrienne is already the end of her family tree. By failing to recognise the modern patterns of the city, by her Gatsby-esque fixation on the past, she brings the downfall of her old family even closer.
A Map of Tulsa is a complex novel, elegiac in tone whilst still managing to criticise the nostalgia of its protagonist. Lytall addresses economic themes, the decline of America’s traditional industry and the impact on the areas which it had supported, and the relationship between the country’s Eastern states and its centre - most of all though, he is adept at exploring the gap between his characters’ perception and the reality of their situations. For Jim, the reality of adulthood can never live up to the future he had imagined when growing up ('those years when we were apart... were the sweetest. Because they had the most potential'), but when he and Adrienne travel back, attempting to recapture that sense of possibility, they are punished.
Locating a traditional narrative in a modern setting, Lytall's writing is both fresh and familiar, whilst Adrienne is a memorable subject, her intrigue growing as the narrator's credibility recedes. There's a hint of Springsteen in this story of small town aspiration and adventure, and something admirably blue collar about his style, straightforward and brisk when compared to the current American vogue for labyrinthine Pynchon and DFW influenced prose. A confident and assured debut, A Map of Tulsa isn't the Great American Novel, but Lytall certainly aspires to great American writing.
A summer in Tulsa is a second choice for Praley: ‘my first plan had been to stay at college… I had applied to work on the summer staff of the college newspaper. However, I did not get on. And no other plan or internship materialised’. Returning home, he initially falls into the old traps, mumbling clichés about downtown being ‘dead’, and chatting to school acquaintances. There’s a hint of Nick Carraway to his character; a lack of spark, a willingness to drift through life. Of course, any Carraway needs a Gatsby to fixate on, and Praley finds his in the shape of Adrienne Booker, the scion of an old oil family turned trust-funded artist. The pair meet at a party, where they take ecstasy and run through their neighbours’ gardens, jumping fences, before having sex on the ground as the sun rises.
Adrienne is old money, practically royalty in Tulsa. Her penthouse apartment overlooks the city, perched above the financial empire of Booker Petroleum. Jim admires her ‘aristocratic’ bearing, and the ‘grandeur’ of the apartment they share for the summer, but is also drawn to her unbounded nature. Growing up ‘pretty unsupervised’ she is capable of behaving outrageously (walking naked through downtown, chopping her hair off while singing in a bar), but always remains in control. Working in her studio, she maintains her focus for hours on end, working on her paintings in silence. To Jim, she represents the best of both worlds, able to embody his ideal of bohemianism because she is supported by her family’s name (and money). Together, they exist literally above the grubby world of commerce, able to concentrate on the finer things.
Jim’s developing conception of Tulsa becomes intimately linked to his image of Adrienne; it is from her penthouse window that he looks down on the ‘powerfully overcomplicated circuit board’ of the city and feels he understands it for the first time. For many characters, Jim and Adrienne’s family among them, Tulsa has been a place to escape, to romanticise from a distance. Adrienne stayed though, somehow finding the city sufficient in itself, happy to play the big fish in the small pond. Her existence proves to Jim that exotic creatures can thrive even in such unpromising environments - more, maybe her surroundings and background lend her an added degree of 'authenticity'. Even when he leaves, at the end of that idealised summer, to return to college and then the literary world of New York, Jim is anchored by thoughts of Tulsa, comforted by the knowledge that Adrienne was still there, a vibrant assertion of individuality in this most unglamorous of States.
Five years later, Jim returns to Tulsa, compelled to come back by news that Adrienne has been injured in a motorcycle accident. He entertains ideas of sweeping into town as a homecoming hero, reuniting with Adrienne, maybe even quitting his job and making a life there. It is at that stage that the gap between Jim’s conception of Tulsa and the reality becomes apparent. Rather than coming to a true understanding of the city, he has simply swapped one set of illusions for another. When he returns, he finds that the clique surrounding Adrienne has changed, she is now surrounded by a younger crowd who don’t remember him from his last spell in town. Missing their cultural reference points, Jim struggles to find common ground with this new group, hovering on the margins of their discussions. Instead, he finds himself gravitating towards Adrienne’s parents, a subtle generational shift that he struggles to adapt to.
The reader comes to realise that Jim Praley is not so much an unreliable narrator as a hopelessly gauche one. The idea of privilege is useful here; as a middle-class, educated white man, he struggles to see the world through anyone else’s eyes, constantly imposing his own views on the landscape he surveys. In fact, he turns out to be wrong about almost everything. He thinks that Adrienne is inseparable from Tulsa (instead, shortly after he leaves, she heads to LA); he assumes that Tulsa’s downtown is dead, before being repeatedly shown that it isn’t; he believes he is special in some way for going to College out of state, before learning that many of his classmates did the same. He expresses frustration when his surroundings fail to conform to his worldview: ‘none of the people… seemed to be aware that they were in a movie about social entropy, and missed connections, and loneliness’.
The question of production is very important in Lytall’s narrative. Tulsa is located in the old American heartland, and its oil industry was the basis of the nation’s industrial development, but the city’s economic power waned as the US began to rely more heavily on imported energy. There is discussion of alternative energy sources in the region, a plan to create a series of heat wells across the north of the state, but it is unclear whether this will come to fruition. If it does, it will require the family to cede control of at least part of the company to outsiders, and lay off staff. This malaise is also apparent on an individual level. Although Adrienne is held up by Jim to be an exemplar of artistic endeavour, very little of her work ever sees the light of public display. Around her, Jim finds his own creativity waning (‘my writing went neglected’), and the other man in her life, Chase, moves away to work as a film producer. Eventually even Adrienne will flee the creative sterility of Tulsa, heading West like a true American adventurer. From the cultural hub of New York, Jim can romanticise the spirit of Tulsa, but Lytall undercuts this view; his compatriots who remain there end up with broken backs and bone diseases, fail to live up to their potential. Jim expects the ambiance of their summer together to somehow have permeated the city, but his experiences with Adrienne's new clique reveal the ephemeral nature of those moments.
Fitzgerald stated that there were no second acts in American lives, that individuals were tied to their pasts; Lytall's characters struggle against this notion, but are ultimately sucked back in. As Gatsby learned, the reality of our lives rarely lives up to our expectations. All we can do is keep moving, leave the past behind us, not be lured by the siren call of adolescent summer affairs. The danger of going over old ground is exemplified by Adrienne’s accident. Returning to Tulsa after an absence, she leaves a party on her motorcycle. Driving on autopilot, following her own mental map of the city, she fails to notice a change in the layout of the road, and comes off the bike. Adrienne is already the end of her family tree. By failing to recognise the modern patterns of the city, by her Gatsby-esque fixation on the past, she brings the downfall of her old family even closer.
A Map of Tulsa is a complex novel, elegiac in tone whilst still managing to criticise the nostalgia of its protagonist. Lytall addresses economic themes, the decline of America’s traditional industry and the impact on the areas which it had supported, and the relationship between the country’s Eastern states and its centre - most of all though, he is adept at exploring the gap between his characters’ perception and the reality of their situations. For Jim, the reality of adulthood can never live up to the future he had imagined when growing up ('those years when we were apart... were the sweetest. Because they had the most potential'), but when he and Adrienne travel back, attempting to recapture that sense of possibility, they are punished.
Locating a traditional narrative in a modern setting, Lytall's writing is both fresh and familiar, whilst Adrienne is a memorable subject, her intrigue growing as the narrator's credibility recedes. There's a hint of Springsteen in this story of small town aspiration and adventure, and something admirably blue collar about his style, straightforward and brisk when compared to the current American vogue for labyrinthine Pynchon and DFW influenced prose. A confident and assured debut, A Map of Tulsa isn't the Great American Novel, but Lytall certainly aspires to great American writing.
July 29, 2017
I read this within 4 hours on a trip back from Edmonton. The only reason I own it is because I turned my back and asked a friend to pick a random book off of the 10 dollar & under bookshelf (a good shelf that I love).
I think it deserves the reviews that it got, the story (though predictable) flows alright. The thing is, I feel like I've read this book already (even though I haven't) because of how unoriginal it is. Jim is monotone and I can't even pretend that he's interesting. For a supposedly decent poet, he really has nothing to say.
I remember reading the back of the book and saying out loud how I knew Adrienne would die despite not having yet read a word of the actual story. Girl changes guy's way of thinking and then she dies, used only as a device to change him. That's how these stories go.
Jim meets Adrienne. They fall in instant love after taking drugs. Jim doesn't like the fact the Adrienne has a kinda sorta boyfriend and requests monogamy. Adrienne, despite having said that she doesn't like monogamy immediately accepts with pretty much no push back. It makes me feel like I can't tell who's she's supposed to be. People are complex, but they don't change just so they can be your dream person.
Adrienne is hot, yet available somehow. She's taken, yet single. She's interested, but not really. She's an artist, but has no original ideas that don't suit the main character. She's in love, but emotionally unavailable.
She's everything and that's boring to read. If I wanted a girl who was everything, then I would go read some old self insert fanfiction.
I could go on, but I think my point is there. Trying to grasp her character is like trying grasp liquid.
I'm so tired of the perfect girl trope. Adrienne was so perfect for Jim even after she died. The idea that she was somehow still... His? Ugh.
Either way, I didn't have trouble paying attention... so that's what this book has going for it. The writing was understandable even though I think that Lytal was going for some quotable moments that made me roll my eyes Ex: "the morning sun smelled like acorns and dirty jeans"
What? What does that smell like? The sun doesn't really have a scent and if it did, it wouldn't smell like that.
I think two stars suits it pretty well.
I think it deserves the reviews that it got, the story (though predictable) flows alright. The thing is, I feel like I've read this book already (even though I haven't) because of how unoriginal it is. Jim is monotone and I can't even pretend that he's interesting. For a supposedly decent poet, he really has nothing to say.
I remember reading the back of the book and saying out loud how I knew Adrienne would die despite not having yet read a word of the actual story. Girl changes guy's way of thinking and then she dies, used only as a device to change him. That's how these stories go.
Jim meets Adrienne. They fall in instant love after taking drugs. Jim doesn't like the fact the Adrienne has a kinda sorta boyfriend and requests monogamy. Adrienne, despite having said that she doesn't like monogamy immediately accepts with pretty much no push back. It makes me feel like I can't tell who's she's supposed to be. People are complex, but they don't change just so they can be your dream person.
Adrienne is hot, yet available somehow. She's taken, yet single. She's interested, but not really. She's an artist, but has no original ideas that don't suit the main character. She's in love, but emotionally unavailable.
She's everything and that's boring to read. If I wanted a girl who was everything, then I would go read some old self insert fanfiction.
I could go on, but I think my point is there. Trying to grasp her character is like trying grasp liquid.
I'm so tired of the perfect girl trope. Adrienne was so perfect for Jim even after she died. The idea that she was somehow still... His? Ugh.
Either way, I didn't have trouble paying attention... so that's what this book has going for it. The writing was understandable even though I think that Lytal was going for some quotable moments that made me roll my eyes Ex: "the morning sun smelled like acorns and dirty jeans"
What? What does that smell like? The sun doesn't really have a scent and if it did, it wouldn't smell like that.
I think two stars suits it pretty well.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 8, 2019
This is the second book about a young couple that I’ve read this year. In contrast to Normal People, this, for me, was a much better read. It’s perhaps a little too long, but given that the storyline barely leaves the city of Tulsa there is a good pace to this novel. The book is split into two halves and written from the perspective of Jim. The first half recounts a summer back home in Tulsa. Jim is 19 and at college. He meets and falls into a relationship with Adrienne Booker, the only child and heiress to the wealth of a oil industry family. We follow their exploits that summer as Jim teaches her about the history of art and they both become closer.
Ultimately that summer must come to an end. Jim must return to college and they ultimately loose touch. The second half of the book see Jim return to Tulsa, five years later, having left college and started working in New York. I won’t say why he returned or what then happens, but it provides a great reflection to the first half of the novel. The themes and issues raised by this book run deep. A really worthwhile read.
Ultimately that summer must come to an end. Jim must return to college and they ultimately loose touch. The second half of the book see Jim return to Tulsa, five years later, having left college and started working in New York. I won’t say why he returned or what then happens, but it provides a great reflection to the first half of the novel. The themes and issues raised by this book run deep. A really worthwhile read.
April 23, 2020
For a book that’s meant to be a love story, I’ve never been less invested in a romantic couple. The two main characters are both extremely dislikable and just go about their days like they’re creative geniuses even though no one seems particularly invested or interested in their poetry/art/music.
I did like how the author wrote about Tulsa itself and wish there was more time given to how the main character felt and related to his hometown. I think that was actually the heart of the story - how someone who thinks that they have outgrown the place they grew up in gets a chance to rediscover it again through new experiences.
Other reviews touched on the pretentious writing so I won’t get into that again here. All in all, very average but enjoyable enough and quick to read.
I did like how the author wrote about Tulsa itself and wish there was more time given to how the main character felt and related to his hometown. I think that was actually the heart of the story - how someone who thinks that they have outgrown the place they grew up in gets a chance to rediscover it again through new experiences.
Other reviews touched on the pretentious writing so I won’t get into that again here. All in all, very average but enjoyable enough and quick to read.
June 25, 2022
I learned of this book in Men's Journal. For a long time I though the title was simply "Tulsa" and I had trouble finding it. But I had saved the paragraph from MJ and was able to get the book from the library.
I don't think this is for everyone. The first half dragged a bit. I enjoyed the second half more, though its where the tragedy occurs. It is my view the writer was trying too hard to create an artistic masterpiece and the book falls short of that. I found the writing tedious and overwrought whereas I appreciate a simpler approach. In fairness it is the authors debut novel and is far better than anything I could do.
I saw somewhere the book compared to "Goodbye Columbus". I will be interested to look at the other reviews.
I don't think this is for everyone. The first half dragged a bit. I enjoyed the second half more, though its where the tragedy occurs. It is my view the writer was trying too hard to create an artistic masterpiece and the book falls short of that. I found the writing tedious and overwrought whereas I appreciate a simpler approach. In fairness it is the authors debut novel and is far better than anything I could do.
I saw somewhere the book compared to "Goodbye Columbus". I will be interested to look at the other reviews.
February 12, 2025
Picked this up as someone who grew up in Tulsa expecting something along the lines of Hemmingway’s Moveable Feast. Instead I got a much worse and somehow even more pretentious version of Kerouac. Dialogue, like the writing, was the most stilted I’ve ever read. The diction was decorative at best. The plot was flat.
I did not care for either Jim or Adrienne. Neither had any redeeming qualities about them. Jim felt exceedingly plain, and his relationship with Adrienne felt transactional if not ill-begotten.
The only reason I can give it 2 stars is for the short, but astute anecdotes about the city itself, and even these were too few and far between.
I did not care for either Jim or Adrienne. Neither had any redeeming qualities about them. Jim felt exceedingly plain, and his relationship with Adrienne felt transactional if not ill-begotten.
The only reason I can give it 2 stars is for the short, but astute anecdotes about the city itself, and even these were too few and far between.
April 22, 2024
Easy read. I preface this by saying, I’m a born & raised Tulsan. The allure to my hometown really made this book special for me. The ending is deeply saddening, and human. The literal & figurative death of hometown love. To briefly feel the nostalgia of my own youth recklessness in this city was refreshing.
February 17, 2019
Morose in both subtle and obvious ways, but excellent. So so excellent. Wish it left me with a happier feeling though. Definitely makes you feel the pull to go to Tulsa, no matter how primal and odd the urge feels.
August 27, 2020
Very compelling first part, but sadly, sort of falls apart in the second. Mostly, it thinks it's a much more interesting story than it actually is, making it feel much longer than it actually is.
Read
February 10, 2022Homework
October 31, 2013
There’s nothing as daunting as going home during your first summer in college with months spread out before you and nothing much to do, except for maybe falling in love.
The first thing that made me fall in love with this novel was the cover – isn’t it gorgeous? I can’t omit this for fear of seeming superficial, so I thought I’d just get this one out of the way. Because the second thing that made me fall in love with this novel was the story. I have never been to Tulsa, but Benjamin Lytal sure made me feel as if I’d grown up there. Together with his protagonist and narrator Jim I returned, feeling a little wary and nostalgic about my former hometown. Are we too good for Tulsa, me and Jim, now that we’ve left for college? Or is Tulsa too good for us, with its skyscrapers and highways that seem to go on forever, at least at night. A city that doesn’t need to try so hard. A city to love or let go. An origin story and a love story told in a gentle pace but harbouring the raw, unsettling feelings of first love lost.
Adrienne Booker is unlike any other girl Jim Praley has ever met. That’s not necessarily the case for me, though. Adrienne is an heiress and consequentially she can afford to drop out of high school and bum around town as an artist that defies definition. What might seem a little clichéed to me, the reader, pulls our narrator in head over heels. To him Adrienne Booker is a mystery, a muse and above all the one that got away. Jim Praley may be telling the story and we may be seeing the world of the novel through his eyes, but really this book is about Adrienne. A young woman who grew up in the reluctant care of her aunt and now lives in the family owned penthouse at the top of a downtown skyscraper that carries her name. She is the secret star of the novel, Jim Praley’s story is like that of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, only there to give a running commentary that enhances the aura surrounding another character.
"It was aspirational when I first dated her. Adrienne lived in a skyscraper. And that she didn’t go to college – to never go in the first place, you know, in our day and age. It blew my mind." (A Map of Tulsa, p. 190)
In her way Adrienne is a “love her or leave her” kind of character. I imagine readers being enraged by her lack of focus and the dreamy way in which she strings the narrator along. Jim on the other hand is little more than a sucker for her antics which she keeps selling as artistic grandeur. Whether you believe her or not, is up to you. It certainly is easy to fall for the act, if it is indeed an act. At the same time, despite being the character the novel is happening around, Adrienne Booker always seems just a little out of focus. Who is she really? How did she end up that way? The reader never gets to know that, mainly because Jim doesn’t. She stays a mirage in his life, one summer she’s there the next summer she is not and that prevents her from ever being more than just a bored heiress, who fancies herself being an artist.
In this one-dimensional characterisation that is partly due to the limited view-point of the first person narrator, lies the main weakness of the novel. Benjamin Lytal leaves us readers wanting for something more, wanting for answers that neither we nor Jim are ever going to get. Apart from this I cannot possibly take fault with this novel. It is well-written throughout and its emphasis on setting keeps it grounded even when its characters are anything but. In “A Map of Tulsa” Benjamin Lytal tells us a story that is uniquely common in the way that most of us will have left home in some form or another, may that be by going to college or just by moving to another city to work, and most of us will have experienced that first homecoming. The streets that are all too familiar, the air that smells vaguely of home and still you will always be the one who left and that both frees you and cuts you off from the people you once knew.
"(…) in America it’s like we’re always supposed to disappear – if we reach, you know, a certain level of success. (…) All our major social institutions growing up are about building intense friendships over a limited period of time and then severing them. High school, and then college. And summer camp. Poof." (A Map of Tulsa, p. 186)
“A Map of Tulsa” manages to capture that distinct feeling of strangeness in a place you used to call your home, of looking back and realizing you can never actually go back and the nostalgia that befalls you upon accepting this, like no other novel I have read so far. Benjamin Lytal’s prose transports you to the northeastern corner of Oklahoma but his story could be set in any minor city in the US or the world for that matter, because the feelings his narrator connects to Tulsa and that first love which rarely ever lasts but yet never loosens its grip on your heart, are universal experiences. And if you ask me, the reading of this novel should be too.
The first thing that made me fall in love with this novel was the cover – isn’t it gorgeous? I can’t omit this for fear of seeming superficial, so I thought I’d just get this one out of the way. Because the second thing that made me fall in love with this novel was the story. I have never been to Tulsa, but Benjamin Lytal sure made me feel as if I’d grown up there. Together with his protagonist and narrator Jim I returned, feeling a little wary and nostalgic about my former hometown. Are we too good for Tulsa, me and Jim, now that we’ve left for college? Or is Tulsa too good for us, with its skyscrapers and highways that seem to go on forever, at least at night. A city that doesn’t need to try so hard. A city to love or let go. An origin story and a love story told in a gentle pace but harbouring the raw, unsettling feelings of first love lost.
Adrienne Booker is unlike any other girl Jim Praley has ever met. That’s not necessarily the case for me, though. Adrienne is an heiress and consequentially she can afford to drop out of high school and bum around town as an artist that defies definition. What might seem a little clichéed to me, the reader, pulls our narrator in head over heels. To him Adrienne Booker is a mystery, a muse and above all the one that got away. Jim Praley may be telling the story and we may be seeing the world of the novel through his eyes, but really this book is about Adrienne. A young woman who grew up in the reluctant care of her aunt and now lives in the family owned penthouse at the top of a downtown skyscraper that carries her name. She is the secret star of the novel, Jim Praley’s story is like that of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, only there to give a running commentary that enhances the aura surrounding another character.
"It was aspirational when I first dated her. Adrienne lived in a skyscraper. And that she didn’t go to college – to never go in the first place, you know, in our day and age. It blew my mind." (A Map of Tulsa, p. 190)
In her way Adrienne is a “love her or leave her” kind of character. I imagine readers being enraged by her lack of focus and the dreamy way in which she strings the narrator along. Jim on the other hand is little more than a sucker for her antics which she keeps selling as artistic grandeur. Whether you believe her or not, is up to you. It certainly is easy to fall for the act, if it is indeed an act. At the same time, despite being the character the novel is happening around, Adrienne Booker always seems just a little out of focus. Who is she really? How did she end up that way? The reader never gets to know that, mainly because Jim doesn’t. She stays a mirage in his life, one summer she’s there the next summer she is not and that prevents her from ever being more than just a bored heiress, who fancies herself being an artist.
In this one-dimensional characterisation that is partly due to the limited view-point of the first person narrator, lies the main weakness of the novel. Benjamin Lytal leaves us readers wanting for something more, wanting for answers that neither we nor Jim are ever going to get. Apart from this I cannot possibly take fault with this novel. It is well-written throughout and its emphasis on setting keeps it grounded even when its characters are anything but. In “A Map of Tulsa” Benjamin Lytal tells us a story that is uniquely common in the way that most of us will have left home in some form or another, may that be by going to college or just by moving to another city to work, and most of us will have experienced that first homecoming. The streets that are all too familiar, the air that smells vaguely of home and still you will always be the one who left and that both frees you and cuts you off from the people you once knew.
"(…) in America it’s like we’re always supposed to disappear – if we reach, you know, a certain level of success. (…) All our major social institutions growing up are about building intense friendships over a limited period of time and then severing them. High school, and then college. And summer camp. Poof." (A Map of Tulsa, p. 186)
“A Map of Tulsa” manages to capture that distinct feeling of strangeness in a place you used to call your home, of looking back and realizing you can never actually go back and the nostalgia that befalls you upon accepting this, like no other novel I have read so far. Benjamin Lytal’s prose transports you to the northeastern corner of Oklahoma but his story could be set in any minor city in the US or the world for that matter, because the feelings his narrator connects to Tulsa and that first love which rarely ever lasts but yet never loosens its grip on your heart, are universal experiences. And if you ask me, the reading of this novel should be too.
June 1, 2016
Where to start? Maybe with the context of the other reviews I've skimmed over here, the flip-flop of 1* or 5* ratings and the incredibly strong emotional reactions people have had to the characters, in particular the narrator, Jim Praley. Have a look, people really don't like him. What I find curious is that so few reviews question whether or not that was part of Lytal's intention.
I don't think you're meant to like Praley. I get that can alienate some readers but it's crucial to think about why Lytal wrote him like that at all. So, Jim's sins (incomplete list):
* He struck me as wrapped up in the arrogances of youth, desperately assigning grandiose significance to everything, wanting to see people as genius, poet or prophet - as Significant.
* He's wildly self-assured and even coldly calculating (it takes a certain dispassionate contempt to intrude on deeply emotional moments like this: "Near the elevator I spotted Lydie. She was seeing the mayor out, and I decided to descend on her, while I still had this look of profundity on my face.")
* He sees things in Adrienne that may not have been there and tries to force her to be what he wants, even physically restraining her at points.
* He's less interesting than Adrienne and is hoping some of it will rub off on him. Look at how much time they spend working, and how quickly he stops working and just watches her. He's passive, lazy even, full of the sense of entitlement you'd expect Adrienne to have given her situation.
Now you've read all that take a moment to think on your own adolescence. Focus in particular on the point when you thought you'd achieved adulthood that a few years later you realised was merely the hinterland of maturity. Now tell me, is Jim that alien to us?
I disagree with a lot of the invective against this book so I'm going to do a quick set of responses to specific points:
1) "The book doesn't do Tulsa justice." So what? It's about Jim and his relationship with Adrienne. Tulsa is the setting, a place that Jim finds so familiar that he doesn't really start seeing it clearly until he's left it for 5 years, at which point the human landscape has changed irrevocably. At one point he says he wants to live "In a house I'd never seen before on a street I'd never visited." The town is only important in relation to Jim.
2) "I hate Jim Praley." See above. With the addendum that it's really troubling for readers if they can't empathise with a narrator. This is especially true if this narrator isn't painted as a villain, and is instead just a frail, flawed human. Heaven forfend that we start to recognise any flaws of our own in them.
3) "Adrienne is a terrible character." You mean Jim's portrayal of Adrienne? They're two different things. It seemed to me that he just didn't ever fully know her. He comes back to Tulsa chasing his dream of her, not the real person who is 5 years different. If Jim was capable of telling Adrienne's story properly he have got on better with Chase.
4) "It's outrageously pretentious." Again, you mean Jim is? Unreliable narrators are slippery, aren't they.
There are some really fine lyrical passages here, and I have a great respect for his ability to compose beautiful phrases that simultaneously resonate with the narrator's identity. For instance, I liked the 'acorns and dirty jeans' simile another reviewer here hated. I also thought the final quarter in particular was excellent. I can't say I always enjoyed Jim's actions, but there was a lot of truth in the last 50 pages. Without giving the plot away, it's one of those situations that, if you've lived through something analogous, it will resonate with you. I found the final scene in the penthouse very emotional to read because of it's familiarity.
So with the defence out of the way, I did find some faults with it myself, hence it drops a star. This was mainly to do with the Lytal's rhythm and occasional repetition. I identified a few phrases that I'd cut or recast, perhaps best demonstrated by, "Adrienne wanted to sing. 'I want to sing, she said'" But it's Lytal's first novel and he's playing with some real complexity here, so I can forgive him that.
So there we have it. If you want to like your narrators maybe don't read this book. If you want to read something you have to cast in your own light, that reminds you of the follies of youth, maybe even contains a modicum of wisdom and hope, then this might be for you.
I don't think you're meant to like Praley. I get that can alienate some readers but it's crucial to think about why Lytal wrote him like that at all. So, Jim's sins (incomplete list):
* He struck me as wrapped up in the arrogances of youth, desperately assigning grandiose significance to everything, wanting to see people as genius, poet or prophet - as Significant.
* He's wildly self-assured and even coldly calculating (it takes a certain dispassionate contempt to intrude on deeply emotional moments like this: "Near the elevator I spotted Lydie. She was seeing the mayor out, and I decided to descend on her, while I still had this look of profundity on my face.")
* He sees things in Adrienne that may not have been there and tries to force her to be what he wants, even physically restraining her at points.
* He's less interesting than Adrienne and is hoping some of it will rub off on him. Look at how much time they spend working, and how quickly he stops working and just watches her. He's passive, lazy even, full of the sense of entitlement you'd expect Adrienne to have given her situation.
Now you've read all that take a moment to think on your own adolescence. Focus in particular on the point when you thought you'd achieved adulthood that a few years later you realised was merely the hinterland of maturity. Now tell me, is Jim that alien to us?
I disagree with a lot of the invective against this book so I'm going to do a quick set of responses to specific points:
1) "The book doesn't do Tulsa justice." So what? It's about Jim and his relationship with Adrienne. Tulsa is the setting, a place that Jim finds so familiar that he doesn't really start seeing it clearly until he's left it for 5 years, at which point the human landscape has changed irrevocably. At one point he says he wants to live "In a house I'd never seen before on a street I'd never visited." The town is only important in relation to Jim.
2) "I hate Jim Praley." See above. With the addendum that it's really troubling for readers if they can't empathise with a narrator. This is especially true if this narrator isn't painted as a villain, and is instead just a frail, flawed human. Heaven forfend that we start to recognise any flaws of our own in them.
3) "Adrienne is a terrible character." You mean Jim's portrayal of Adrienne? They're two different things. It seemed to me that he just didn't ever fully know her. He comes back to Tulsa chasing his dream of her, not the real person who is 5 years different. If Jim was capable of telling Adrienne's story properly he have got on better with Chase.
4) "It's outrageously pretentious." Again, you mean Jim is? Unreliable narrators are slippery, aren't they.
There are some really fine lyrical passages here, and I have a great respect for his ability to compose beautiful phrases that simultaneously resonate with the narrator's identity. For instance, I liked the 'acorns and dirty jeans' simile another reviewer here hated. I also thought the final quarter in particular was excellent. I can't say I always enjoyed Jim's actions, but there was a lot of truth in the last 50 pages. Without giving the plot away, it's one of those situations that, if you've lived through something analogous, it will resonate with you. I found the final scene in the penthouse very emotional to read because of it's familiarity.
So with the defence out of the way, I did find some faults with it myself, hence it drops a star. This was mainly to do with the Lytal's rhythm and occasional repetition. I identified a few phrases that I'd cut or recast, perhaps best demonstrated by, "Adrienne wanted to sing. 'I want to sing, she said'" But it's Lytal's first novel and he's playing with some real complexity here, so I can forgive him that.
So there we have it. If you want to like your narrators maybe don't read this book. If you want to read something you have to cast in your own light, that reminds you of the follies of youth, maybe even contains a modicum of wisdom and hope, then this might be for you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2014
Where to start? Maybe with the context of the other reviews I've skimmed over here, the flip-flop of 1* or 5* ratings and the incredibly strong emotional reactions people have had to the characters, in particular the narrator, Jim Praley. Have a look, people really don't like him. What I find curious is that so few reviews question whether or not that was part of Lytal's intention.
I don't think you're meant to like Praley. I get that can alienate some readers but it's crucial to think about why Lytal wrote him like that at all. So, Jim's sins (incomplete list):
* He struck me as wrapped up in the arrogances of youth, desperately assigning grandiose significance to everything, wanting to see people as genius, poet or prophet - as Significant.
* He's wildly self-assured and even coldly calculating (it takes a certain dispassionate contempt to intrude on deeply emotional moments like this: "Near the elevator I spotted Lydie. She was seeing the mayor out, and I decided to descend on her, while I still had this look of profundity on my face.")
* He sees things in Adrienne that may not have been there and tries to force her to be what he wants, even physically restraining her at points.
* He's less interesting than Adrienne and is hoping some of it will rub off on him. Look at how much time they spend working, and how quickly he stops working and just watches her. He's passive, lazy even, full of the sense of entitlement you'd expect Adrienne to have given her situation.
Now you've read all that take a moment to think on your own adolescence. Focus in particular on the point when you thought you'd achieved adulthood that a few years later you realised was merely the hinterland of maturity. Now tell me, is Jim that alien to us?
I disagree with a lot of the invective against this book so I'm going to do a quick set of responses to specific points:
1) "The book doesn't do Tulsa justice." So what? It's about Jim and his relationship with Adrienne. Tulsa is the setting, a place that Jim finds so familiar that he doesn't really start seeing it clearly until he's left it for 5 years, at which point the human landscape has changed irrevocably. At one point he says he wants to live "In a house I'd never seen before on a street I'd never visited." The town is only important in relation to Jim.
2) "I hate Jim Praley." See above. With the addendum that it's really troubling for readers if they can't empathise with a narrator. This is especially true if this narrator isn't painted as a villain, and is instead just a frail, flawed human. Heaven forfend that we start to recognise any flaws of our own in them.
3) "Adrienne is a terrible character." You mean Jim's portrayal of Adrienne? They're two different things. It seemed to me that he just didn't ever fully know her. He comes back to Tulsa chasing his dream of her, not the real person who is 5 years different. If Jim was capable of telling Adrienne's story properly he have got on better with Chase.
4) "It's outrageously pretentious." Again, you mean Jim is? Unreliable narrators are slippery, aren't they.
There are some really fine lyrical passages here, and I have a great respect for his ability to compose beautiful phrases that simultaneously resonate with the narrator's identity. For instance, I liked the 'acorns and dirty jeans' simile another reviewer here hated. I also thought the final quarter in particular was excellent. I can't say I always enjoyed Jim's actions, but there was a lot of truth in the last 50 pages. Without giving the plot away, it's one of those situations that, if you've lived through something analogous, it will resonate with you. I found the final scene in the penthouse very emotional to read because of it's familiarity.
So with the defence out of the way, I did find some faults with it myself, hence it drops a star. This was mainly to do with the Lytal's rhythm and occasional repetition. I identified a few phrases that I'd cut or recast, perhaps best demonstrated by, "Adrienne wanted to sing. 'I want to sing, she said'" But it's Lytal's first novel and he's playing with some real complexity here, so I can forgive him that.
So there we have it. If you want to like your narrators maybe don't read this book. If you want to read something you have to cast in your own light, that reminds you of the follies of youth, maybe even contains a modicum of wisdom and hope, then this might be for you.
I don't think you're meant to like Praley. I get that can alienate some readers but it's crucial to think about why Lytal wrote him like that at all. So, Jim's sins (incomplete list):
* He struck me as wrapped up in the arrogances of youth, desperately assigning grandiose significance to everything, wanting to see people as genius, poet or prophet - as Significant.
* He's wildly self-assured and even coldly calculating (it takes a certain dispassionate contempt to intrude on deeply emotional moments like this: "Near the elevator I spotted Lydie. She was seeing the mayor out, and I decided to descend on her, while I still had this look of profundity on my face.")
* He sees things in Adrienne that may not have been there and tries to force her to be what he wants, even physically restraining her at points.
* He's less interesting than Adrienne and is hoping some of it will rub off on him. Look at how much time they spend working, and how quickly he stops working and just watches her. He's passive, lazy even, full of the sense of entitlement you'd expect Adrienne to have given her situation.
Now you've read all that take a moment to think on your own adolescence. Focus in particular on the point when you thought you'd achieved adulthood that a few years later you realised was merely the hinterland of maturity. Now tell me, is Jim that alien to us?
I disagree with a lot of the invective against this book so I'm going to do a quick set of responses to specific points:
1) "The book doesn't do Tulsa justice." So what? It's about Jim and his relationship with Adrienne. Tulsa is the setting, a place that Jim finds so familiar that he doesn't really start seeing it clearly until he's left it for 5 years, at which point the human landscape has changed irrevocably. At one point he says he wants to live "In a house I'd never seen before on a street I'd never visited." The town is only important in relation to Jim.
2) "I hate Jim Praley." See above. With the addendum that it's really troubling for readers if they can't empathise with a narrator. This is especially true if this narrator isn't painted as a villain, and is instead just a frail, flawed human. Heaven forfend that we start to recognise any flaws of our own in them.
3) "Adrienne is a terrible character." You mean Jim's portrayal of Adrienne? They're two different things. It seemed to me that he just didn't ever fully know her. He comes back to Tulsa chasing his dream of her, not the real person who is 5 years different. If Jim was capable of telling Adrienne's story properly he have got on better with Chase.
4) "It's outrageously pretentious." Again, you mean Jim is? Unreliable narrators are slippery, aren't they.
There are some really fine lyrical passages here, and I have a great respect for his ability to compose beautiful phrases that simultaneously resonate with the narrator's identity. For instance, I liked the 'acorns and dirty jeans' simile another reviewer here hated. I also thought the final quarter in particular was excellent. I can't say I always enjoyed Jim's actions, but there was a lot of truth in the last 50 pages. Without giving the plot away, it's one of those situations that, if you've lived through something analogous, it will resonate with you. I found the final scene in the penthouse very emotional to read because of it's familiarity.
So with the defence out of the way, I did find some faults with it myself, hence it drops a star. This was mainly to do with the Lytal's rhythm and occasional repetition. I identified a few phrases that I'd cut or recast, perhaps best demonstrated by, "Adrienne wanted to sing. 'I want to sing, she said'" But it's Lytal's first novel and he's playing with some real complexity here, so I can forgive him that.
So there we have it. If you want to like your narrators maybe don't read this book. If you want to read something you have to cast in your own light, that reminds you of the follies of youth, maybe even contains a modicum of wisdom and hope, then this might be for you.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2017
I found this book in August Ninjabookbox and so I must say, it is not a genre I usually read.
But I loved the first part. I really truly loved the image of Adrienne portraited by Jim. It reminded me of the love Dante felt for Beatrice.
But the second part was meh. It somehow had lost its glow, and start to wither. And i started to lose interest.
So well, a truly good book for the first part, but it needed to end sooner.
But I loved the first part. I really truly loved the image of Adrienne portraited by Jim. It reminded me of the love Dante felt for Beatrice.
But the second part was meh. It somehow had lost its glow, and start to wither. And i started to lose interest.
So well, a truly good book for the first part, but it needed to end sooner.
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