Kathleen Alcalá reviews Stephanie Barbé Hammer's PRETEND PLUMBER: AN ADVENTURE

Pretend Plumber: An Adventure

A review by Kathleen Alcalá

Pretend Plumber is a short novel that tackles the question, “What is home?” Sarassine is the only daughter of a very busy, very important couple who live in West Los Angeles. This is not the wilderness California of my childhood, but rather, the fashionable, protected West LA where children have no idea how to repair or clean anything, because the help always does it. When the plumbing begins to act up while Sarassine is home alone with her best friend Charlus, she does the only thing she knows: calls an Israeli contractor, Mr. Pasternak, the person her parents always call.

That finished, she and Charlus walk (nearly unheard of in Los Angeles!) to her grandfather’s home in hopes of food—because Sarassine is always hungry—and plumbing that works.

This book is part exegesis, part coming of age, and part farce. It is full of self-absorbed people, institutions that reflect the same, well-meaning Jews, and even a little Kabbalistic magic. It also casts a light on the “things down below”—be they our personal plumbing, a secretly SM retirement home with senior ciizens dressed in black leather, angelic drug dealers, or unresolved family dynamics.

Names change constantly in this book to reflect the changing emotional maturity of the narrator, as well as the impermanence of life in SoCa. Sarassine Anfang goes by the name Sam for much of the book as she haplessly gets misidentified as a boy, then runs with it just to see what happens. Recently bat mitzva ’ed, Sarassine loans the strappy red heels she wore to her friend Charlus as they indulge their exploration of being trans. Newly empowered by the heels, Charlus decides to go by the name of Jackie.

Because of Sarassine’s unrelentingly honest voice, this is probably best described as a YA book. Sarassine has a condition I’ve never heard of called dyspraxia, which makes it hard for her to learn certain things, and physically awkward. Those of us who survived adolescence might vaguely recall Sam’s experience of a first kiss, her willingness to forgive her parents for their non-parenting, and her openness to the many and varied characters that people Los Angeles today.

This book, in some ways, is a celebration of the city and its inhabitants, both those living in it openly, and those living in the shadows, such as the three immigrant children whose parents have been picked up by ICE.

Several times, I found myself thinking—how did she know? about certain oddities of LA, but the truth is that the city and its surroundings will continue to evolve in odd and quirky ways, and take its inhabitants with it. This book, in some ways, is a celebration of the city and its inhabitants, both those living in it openly, and those living in the shadows, such as the three immigrant children whose parents have been picked up by ICE.

What is home? Many of us will seek the answer to that question all of our lives, but we begin to see the inkling of an answer in Sarassine’s wide-eyed exploration of her physical and emotional landscape. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in, according to Robert Frost. By the time Sarassine has explored many potential homes and family arrangements, she, and we, begin to understand that her new status as an adult might give her some agency and enable her to choose the people who will help make her a home.

Kathleen Alcalá was born in Compton, California, to Mexican parents and grew up in San Bernardino. She has a degree in linguistics from Stanford University, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and an MFA from the University of New Orleans. A graduate of the Clarion West Science Fiction and Fantasy program, her work embraces both traditional and innovative storytelling techniques. She is the author of six books that include a collection of stories, three novels, a book of essays, and The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island, from the University of Washington Press (2016). She lives on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, Washington, where she has been designated an Island Treasure.

Pretend Plumber: An Adventure
by Stephanie Barbé Hammer

ISBN: 978-1-9559690-4-8
Inlandia Books
https://bookshop.org/shop/InlandiaBooks

2022, 228 pages, 5.5x8.25, $18.40