LIFE OF THE PARTY - TEA HACIC-VLAHOVIC

150 This is the first book I’ve ever read written by someone I went to high school with. As a result, this was one of the strangest and most singular reading experiences I’ve had in the last few years. I spent the book balancing what I was reading with what I know about the person who wrote it. And, to be clear, Tea and we’re never super close. Certainly a friend-of-friends situation in High School. Since then I’ve seen her maybe twice, tho I believe some good friends of mine see her more often. I saw her on a few Christmas breaks when we were both in college and she was back from Milan. She had great stories about the Milan Fashion world. I’m obviously not nearly as plugged into that world as her but I’ve explored some of the edges (specifically through a male model/photographer I met in Mexico City) and I’ve always loved how self-parodic it is. Beautiful young people from around the world, surrounded by the most ghoulish rich people imaginable. Tea once told me about a party she attended that featured an indoor igloo. Sadly, that story isn’t in this book. What is in this book is very genre-confused, but in a way I found distracting rather than boundary-pushing. Technically, it is a novel. The main character’s name is Mia, not Tea, though otherwise it reads very much like a memoir. To the point where she used the real name of her high school boyfriend (an older punk dude) and the cop that worked at our high school. As a brief aside, there are some “cops are sexy” moments in the book (I counted 3) including praise of our High School cop who I, and the rest of the school, saw assault a kid, that doesn’t jive super well with the current mood. Besides the occasional talk with a pigeon and an extended fantasy sequence (my favorite part) it seems like a straight retelling of her time in Milan. Perhaps this is something of an answer to a question I’ve had about people like David Sedaris, ie memorists, who get called out for factual snafus, why don’t they just label their books “fiction.” It turns out the answer is because it really changes what I want from the book. For instance, this book has basically no characters. There are 3 characters, besides Mia, that we get to know somewhat. A gay best friend (tho all we learn is that Mia thinks he’s funny), a Devil-wears-Prada style boss (who’s main quality is that Mia admires her for being successful at throwing parties while being a woman) and a very abusive boyfriend (who also seems to have no qualities besides sadism and the fact that he’s married). If this were a novel, I’d expect it to follow and develop one of these themes. The most compelling story-line seems to be the boyfriend. What attracted her to him and vice versa? Why is he so abusive? Why does Mia stay with him? The closest the book comes to exploring this is the following, “Being nice isn’t nice at all. Being nice is the reason people have been so mean to me. Being nice makes people uncomfortable because it makes them feel pressured to be nice in return. But they don’t know how or aren’t willing to do that . So you being nice makes them feel bad. And when they feel bad they treat you badly.” and, “The thing about rape is it isn’t always the worst thing that happens to a woman. Sometimes, it’s not even the worst thing that happens to us that day.” The first quote doesn’t make sense in the context of the book. Mia is not nice and certainly not “too nice,” though it is interesting that she thinks that’s her problem. The second statement I find provocative and I wish she’d explore the issue of Mia’s sexuality and pathology but the book keeps being derailed by it’s memoir qualities, essentially a “this happened, then this happened” format, sprinkled with literal lists of party advice and playlists which is classic memoir filler material. There is also a strange 2 page rhapsody to Lady Gaga generally and “Marry the Night” in particular. I’ve never heard anyone nearly my age feel the way Tea feels about Gaga about anyone except Beyonce.  But basically, I would have liked this book to pick a lane. Either be a satirical novel about the Fashion World and Milan or a memoir about a woman growing up who feels out of place everywhere or a comic memoir of silly fashion world stuff or an exploration of the darkness and violence at the heart of heterosexuality.  Again, my favorite stuff was the most fantastical and untethered to reality, I wish the book had been more of a novel. Who will be the next Wildcat to write a book? 2006 lines of blow.