Tusa’s characters could each be the subject of a story. Each has the potential complexity of the characters on a good television series; worthy of development. In fact some time after reading the story I concluded it felt, it tasted like a one-hour episode of a television drama. His descriptive talent captured each scene, each point of view with the painstaking, often painful detail of a high quality photograph. The detail and visual quality was amazing. I was impressed. The drawback to his story is in the same vein. It is as if the detail of visual description is supposed to convey the story, like a sound bite is a television substitute for explaining one’s position.
I was drawn urgently through the book expecting the insight to be around the corner on the next page. When it concluded, I felt too much like I had just finished watching the story for an hour on a television crime show where the character development only happens over the course of a season or two of such episodes. I could picture the story of Hailey even more so because I know the places Tusa puts her physically but not emotionally. I never felt her emotion despite a wonderful image of thoughts “crawling around like roaches in her head.” Tusa is a poet. I haven’t read his poetry yet but I suspect the expected brevity of that medium infected his story-telling here.
I pictured a balloon with pictures on it sharp and in focus and wanted to inflate the balloon to learn the rest of the story. Hailey experiences some of the most affecting things one can in the course of the story but continues smoothly, mechanically as if a recording device. The visual no matter how outstanding doesn’t tell Hailey’s story, it expects the reader to inflict the story with his own.
I want to read more from Chris Tusa. I know something great is there and I can’t wait to read it. ( 
)