Trespass by Valerie Martin

Originally published in Time Out New York, September 20, 2007

No boundaries are inviolable and the outsiders are insiders now, or so fears Chloe Dale, the central figure in Valerie Martin’s provocative new novel, Trespass. Set in 2002 on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the book opens with a disastrous lunch date between Chloe, her son Toby, and his new girlfriend, a Croatian refugee named Salome Drago. Chloe is immediately suspicious of Salome’s motives, which leads to her estrangement from Toby and her husband, Brendan. Accepting a peripheral role in her son’s life proves difficult, and as Toby and Salome’s relationship intensifies, Chloe retreats further into her own world, isolating herself from those she loves.

Trespass, however, is not merely a high-drama domestic novel. Martin interweaves Chloe’s personal battles with the conflicts Salome encounters when she sets out on a quest to find her mother, whom she thought was killed in the civil war that destroyed her native Yugoslavia. It might seem like a stretch to compare the war between Serbs and Croats to a family spat, but by focusing the narrative on the unraveling Dale family, Martin forces us to consider larger questions concerning nationalism, warfare and U.S. foreign policy.

Trespass is written in the present tense, which is appropriate given the book’s preoccupation with how history is recorded. Martin’s exploration of the volatile political climate of post-9/11 America occasionally feels didactic, but she should be applauded for handling such ambitious subject matter with frankness and grace. Unsettling and at times tragic, Trespasscasts a cold eye on the American family and reveals the uncertainties that cloud our evolving national identity.