The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 9 July 1999
by Erika Lopez
Tomato Rodriguez is a young woman in New Jersey having a tough time keeping her life together. After an accident involving a Vespa and a neighbor's cat, she finally musters the courage to go on a cross-country motorcycle trip to see her father in San Francisco. It is a sign of the uncertainty to come that she adopts her neighbor, whom she basically dislikes, as her partner for the journey. After departing, still learning how to handle the little motorcycle, Tomato embarks on many biographical asides, spawned by the little adventures of the trip. The book is edgy and ambivalent. One never really knows what Lopez's point is to the story as it keeps jumping around, usually settling on the subject of Tomato's ambivalent sexuality. She enjoys the attentions of men, but feels pretty certain that she's a lesbian. Yet, Lopez captures an inner voice very well. Tomato's mind, like that of many people is full of anxieties about death and identity and the postal service. Her wandering thoughts, sometimes disturbing, sometimes mundane, mirror the problems of living in an overstimulated society. Tomato falls to existential despair and rises to great hopes for living happily in the moment. She turns from worry to joyously sexual meditations. Along the way, she meets some quirky characters, and despite her edgy tone, is unable to outright despise anyone. Still, for a young woman travelling to see her probably terminally ill father, there is precious little concern for that side of the story. A couple characters vanish without a trace and so the book hits a few potholes in the trip to California. And Tomato's final epiphany sounds somewhat hollow considering the darkness of much of the trip.
The paperback version of this novel is published in a bright, eye-catching display of color and changing font types. Within, the story is puncutated by clip-art and rubber-stamped images. It has a cyberpunk feel to it which is as distracting as often as it is amusing.