Book Review: Talitha Stevensons An Empty Room

British author Talitha Stevenson paints a stunning portrait in mournful and joyous words of love, loyalty, and betrayal in her first novel An Empty Room, a finalist for the Whitbread First Novel Award and Guildford Book Festival’s Pendleton May First Novel Award and a gem from Carrol & Graf Publishing.Stevenson tells the tale of Emily, a directionless nineteen year-old living in the glamorous shadow of her handsome boyfriend, Tom, and in the underground of all-night parties and drugs. As the glossy picture of a happy relationship within wild nights fades, Emily embarks on a soul-searching mission away from her consuming loneliness and the misery of Tom’s parents divorce and her own parents secret frustrating tension. At once she is drawn to Tom’s older, married cousin, Simon, and begins an affair that compels her to decide where her morals lie in situations of love, loyalty, and betrayal.For a first novel, Stevenson masters the art of storytelling. Using her own experiences of divorce and confronting the aspects of disappointing love, she gives Emily believable human strength and weakness. Her portrayal of Emily’s relationships within her family and Tom’s family is a compassionate one, taking on an aura of sympathy, anger, and sadness all in one. It is through Emily’s relationships and the affair that ensues between her and Simon that Stevenson causes the character to grow, even under such weighty pressure of being a good girl.Stevenson also takes on the tough topics of London’s underground drug scene and abuse, and causes a sense of empathy for Emily as she tackles her emotionally-splintered world. Beginning at the end, Stevenson follows Emily’s life up until that moment like a memory, allowing introspection and reflection on the choices the character could have made.. She allows the reader to step into Emily’s shoes as the character recalls her own memories of past events while questioning what her mother, her father, her sister, Tom, and Simon thought then and what they would think of her now.An Empty Room also gives Stevenson the chance to create the vivid imagery in Emily’s world. As Simon and Emily consummate their affair in the unfinished, unfurnished new house of Tom’s mother, Stevenson creates the foreshadowing destruction of everything Emily knew of love: “Later we went into the hall and pulled the mattress in. It slapped down in the middle of the floor, sending up a dust cloud into the shaft of streetlight. It was a pale, bleaching light, which filled the room now the daylight had gone. It slid down our bare arms and legs like cold water; it flashed off his hair when he leant far back with his eyes closed tightly. He made a strange, lost sound. I pulled him down against me to hold onto him and then he was breathing hard against my neck. His hair was soft and dusty in my fingers.” (p. 93)Passages like these are Stevenson’s calling. Although she has a tendency to be redundant in her wording, she takes on the role of Emily’s consciousness with the dark flair of a soul searcher. Even her characters dialogue is intriguing, as she focuses more on how the character speaks to Emily rather than what they are saying – the deeper condescending nature of adult speeches to children nearly forced onto the reader’s own psyche.Although a prominently British novel, Stevenson’s masterpiece reaches out to all ages, everywhere. It is available at any Barnes and Noble or Borders bookstores and at Amazon.com for $23.00 (hardcover). Pick it up; it’s a great read for a rainy spring day.