The Insufficiency of Maps: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)"The Insufficiency of Maps" by Nora Pierce is a compelling but flawed story concerning an endearing, imaginative, and confused child struggling against adversity. The story begins with Alice, a five-year old Native American girl telling us about the bus trip she is taking with her mother. They are taking an exhausting, exciting journey so her mother can be married. They end up in an impoverished Indian reservation in Arizona where Alice is introduced to a man who may be her "Papi."
The next two-thirds of the book covers a few short months in the child's life. The reader learns everything through the quiet, all-observing, eyes-wide-open voice of vulnerable little five-year old Alice. We can't help but fall in love with this child! Through the child's inexperienced young voice, the reader is able to recognize what the child cannot. While she gets to know her Papi, plays around his dilapidated trailer, makes friends, goes to school, and later goes with her mother to live with her grandfather in Los Angeles, we are consumed by fear. We cannot put this book down, so fearful are we for the young child at every turn. We see Alice exposed to poverty, endangered by malnutrition, and victimized by neglect. Her caregivers are absent, alcoholic, or mentally or physically ill. They all love her, but are incapable of fulfilling her most basic needs. It is heart-wrenching and utterly compelling.
In the last third of the book, Alice becomes orphaned, and is taken into the foster care system. She begins living with a family in the white suburbs of Los Angeles. Alice seems lost in this completely alien culture. Trying to find her way, she becomes obsessed with maps.
In a succession of brief chapters, Alice grows up. During this period, we see Alice only through quick glimpses--a series of sketches, nothing full enough to reimagine clearly how the child is changing. All too quickly we are at the end of the novel. Alice is suddenly 14, and she is finally able to put some important thing in perspective and take matters into her own hands. The novel ends with an unexpected and satisfying coming-of-age experience that puts Alice squarely on the path toward self-realization.
Pierce's prose is elegant, literary, spare, and lyrical. The dialogue is excellent. Overall, I was pleased and impressed. In particular, the author successfully transports the reader into life on a modern-day Indian reservation, and exposes us clearly to the disabling upheaval of foster care. I look forward to reading more by this talented author; however, I have mixed feelings for this work as a whole. For the first two thirds I was absolutely enthralled; I could not stop reading; I was completely captivated and compelled. But at the point where Alice is transferred into foster care, the book abruptly changes pace and voice. Alice seems to have the very life drained from her. As a reader, I could no longer imagine Alice or believe in her as a middle-schooler, preteen, or adolescent. Thus the overall three-star rating on a book that might easily have earned five stars.

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