Coming into awareness of one’s own sexuality through a same-sex crush on a roommate is close to a cliche, yet within the novel, tension rings in every paragraph. The result is a chamber drama with the atmosphere of a murder mystery.īy today’s standards, The Tree and The Vine is overwrought. Its sparse and anxious prose, while a product of its time, imbues the book with the flavor of Bea’s dizzying emotional state. From its first moment, it focuses in on the women’s unremarkable relationship, in which innocuous moments illicit tumultuous emotional responses from both women. Told through Bea’s perspective, the story relies on oblique prompts that encourage its audience to read between the lines. Bea is slow to catch on to the nature of her obsession-much slower than the audience is, and miles behind eccentric Erica. She is unabashedly aware of her own sexuality and is both revolutionary and infuriating, a combination that leads pragmatic Bea into near obsession with her. First published in 1954, Dola de Jong’s novel The Tree and The Vine hums with obsessive energy as it follows the confusion of unfamiliar emotions.Įrica is a creature of high highs and low lows. Bea and Erica, who are outwardly just roommates, have a relationship that’s so intense that it bewilders Bea.
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