Review: 'Problems,' by Jade Sharma

Terse yet complete, the title of Jade Sharma's debut novel pretty much covers it: Maya, a socially awkward 30-year-old graduate student in New York City, has an abundance of problems. Although she has been a heroin user since she was 18, "Problems" focuses on one particularly challenging stretch of her life. We cringe, empathize and even occasionally snicker (thanks to Maya's irrepressible black humor) as these problems build upon themselves and reach a tipping point.

Written in a meandering, diaristic style, "Problems" takes us through Maya's mostly bleak and unfulfilling day-to-day life: She wakes up late, does dope, goes to her bookstore job, thinks about sex, sees or thinks about seeing a former professor she's been having an affair with, and ponders the unsatisfactory state of her life and marriage.

The second quarter or so of the book breaks from the predominant style of scattered musings, in that it consists entirely of a trip Maya and her husband, Peter, take to visit his family (complete with born-again Christian parents) over Thanksgiving. After they return home, Maya's marriage, tenuous affair and job all reach crisis points — which launches us into the next phase of the book, which is essentially a thought-provokingly candid foray into the art of turning tricks to support a drug habit. Finally, a 911 call lands her in the hospital and Maya is forced to confront her addiction as she hasn't been able to before.

"Problems" is dominated by one key attribute of Maya's: her unflinching bluntness. She lays everything out there regardless of conventional ugliness level, from dope-sick bowel movements to the painfully awkward denouement of her one-sided extramarital affair. She is constantly asking questions of herself, the reader, or others. These questions and other reflections frequently challenge or altogether disregard social decorum and its absurdities in an effort to reveal or simply find her own truth — reflections on how she sees men and how she thinks men see her in her liaisons; on feeling triumphant for getting paid for sex; on not feeling quite what she thinks she should about her husband and her terminally ill mother.

While much of "Problems" is about the demon of addiction and the contrasting types of obstacles Maya must face while high vs. while sober, the novel also captures the raw details of a turning point in someone's life. In a sense, Maya has long been lost, drifting, in a sort of primordial ooze. The end of "Problems" presents a glimmer of hope that she may finally be able to crawl out of it and evolve into the person she wants to be.

Kim Hedges is an editor and book reviewer in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Problems
By: Jade Sharma.
Publisher: Coffee House Press, 180 pages, $16.95.