Stacey D'Erasmo's new novel, following the highly acclaimed Tea, is a powerful and beautiful book about a pivotal year in the life of a quintessentially modern family.

In contemporary San Francisco, an extended family is transformed by the emerging breakdown of a troubled adolescent boy. The lives of those who love Christopher — his mother, Nan; her lover, Marina; his gay father, Hal; and Christopher's loyal girlfriend, Tamara — are pushed to the edge by something new in him that mystifies them all. When he runs away, far into the woods of nothern California, their assumptions about themselves and one another are sorely tested. They might not, they discover, be quite so modern as they once thought. Even the dried seahorses on Marina's windowpane rattle unnervingly as if to announce a time like no other.

In precise, lyrical language, A Seahorse Year explores love at the limits of bearability. It is wise about the things we do out of love that often have both redemptive and disastrous consequences. Difficult questions that have all the tough complexity of real life are asked; devastating truths are revealed in the answers. Michael Cunningham described Tea as "pure and profound, a ravishing book." A Seahorse Year is an even richer, more luminous achievement.

"D'Erasmo's quiet, penetrating second novel (after Tea) follows a San Francisco family coping with a 16-year-old son's mental illness. Christopher's mom, Nan, is in a long-term relationship with girlfriend Marina, who's like another mom; his sperm donor dad, Hal, is gay, a dancer-turned-CPA. But despite the unconventional setup, his parents sometimes act with the confused stiffness of the most traditional of families. When Christopher runs away the first time, Nan is distraught; she explains that her son had 'a freak-out, we think. He wouldn't wash, he was angry all the time, he was saying all sorts of strange stuff, and he just, he just wasn't Christopher.' After Christopher is fetched home, he's diagnosed with schizophrenia; Nan, meanwhile, is grasping at connection, and Marina's sleeping with someone else. D'Erasmo portrays Christopher's strange thoughts with beauty and insight; his misguided girlfriend, Tamara, is also tenderly, convincingly rendered. The family's unsettled state adds to the complications, as Christopher nearly kills himself and then escapes, with Tamara's help, from a mental health facility. As D'Erasmo shifts between different points of view — distinct, but united by her lush prose — she paints a portrait of illness, but also of growth and change. 5-city author tour. Agent, Jennifer Carlson. (July 7) Forecast: The book's non-traditional family set-up and effortless prose will remind readers of Michael Cunningham's early novels, and should help build D'Erasmo's readership." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"D'Erasmo creates a fully realized world of politically correct yet complex characters and situations, but a tone of self-important seriousness...may well get on readers' nerves. Iris Murdoch-lite but without Murdoch's light touch." Kirkus Reviews

"Beautifully plotted, cunningly structured, and richly textured, this gorgeous novel offers rare pleasures of both character and language." Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever

"Her prose pulses with just how it feels to live now; she has an astonishing feel for the texture of contemporary life...superb." Mark Doty, author of Sweet Machine

"[W]hat is abundantly clear throughout is D'Erasmo's talent and intelligence. A Seahorse Year succeeds in being both deeply satisfying and quietly subversive." Margot Livesey, The New York Times Book Review

D'Erasmo's novel is about love at the very edge, about the things people do out of love, the unexpected risks of intimacy, and how families shatter and re-form under duress.

Stacey D’Erasmo is the author of the novels Tea, (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year); and A Seahorse Year, which was named a Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and Newsday, and won a Lambda Literary Award. She was a Stegner Fellow in Fiction from 1995-1997. Her essays, features, and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, and Ploughshares. She is currently an assistant professor of writing at Columbia University.