YELLOW

Mysticism and science merge in the story of a Louisiana artist.

In the summer of 1973, 12-year-old Eliza discovers a mysterious yellow slime mold growing in the backyard of her suburban New Orleans home. Convinced that it’s sentient, communal, and has arrived “to teach us something,” she watches one night as the being she christens “Yellow” releases “faeries...bright as bees.” She introduces Yellow to her younger brother, Clem, who is equally fascinated. (Her parents and three other siblings, less so.) That summer, Eliza is sexually assaulted at a local lake, an event that coincides with the disappearance of Yellow. She goes on to change her name to Z, studies art at Barnard, moves back to New Orleans to make and teach art, and reunites with Clem, now homeless and ecstatic. He disappears during Hurricane Katrina, and Z continues to travel, teach, fall in and out of love, meet her soulmate, and pursue the possible serial killer who assaulted her. Poet Pence includes in her debut novel extensive, illustrated—and narratively unnecessary—timelines including the events of 1973, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the Covid pandemic. Z’s story is woven in with glimpses of astronaut Pete Conrad, who may or may not have seen a UFO somehow connected with Yellow while working on a mission outside a space station. Aside from the presence of the slime mold, the novel follows the conventional path of a long-extended coming-of-age tale. Pence tells her story in language on the border between poetic and precious; her silky prose almost compensates for the novel’s lack of momentum.

Dreamy but insubstantial.