"The Tragedy Paper" Overview

          The Tragedy Paper, written by Elizabeth Laban, is mainly about a tragedy story of "first love and heartbreak" of a 17-year old albino, Tim MacBeth. Tim recently transfers to the Irving School and suddenly meets a girl, Vanessa, who goes to school that he's transferring to. Throughout the beginning of the book Tim falls in love to Vanessa, but he finds out that she has already a boyfriend who goes to the Irving School, Patrick. This book is a stirring story, because Tim is situated in a truthful dismal life and love triangle. The ending is also something that is unexpected.

          Elizabeth Laban creates an interesting style in the novel; she uses two alternating viewpoints from two different characters. One of the viewpoint is set on the present time, and it is use in the third point of view of Duncan. Duncan is currently a senior student in the Irving School who is listening to Tim's tragic story, through the CD recordings that Tim left for Duncan as a "treasure". The other viewpoint is the first point of view of Tim. As Duncan listened to Tim's CD recordings he realized that he couldn't stop listening to it, and he needed to find out Tim's whole story. "Duncan knew what Tim had set in motion. Why couldn't there be a big flashing red light that goes off when someone makes a bad choice, or in this case, a disastrous choice? . . . It was so frustrating that he considered throwing the CDs out his little round window and never thinking of them again . . . The last thing he needed was to go through it all again" (166). Duncan has no other choice but to sit and listen to discover Tim's tragic past and mistakes. "For Vanessa, Patrick would always come first, and she would always see me as an albino---that was all I would ever be to her" (245). This is one of Tim's heartbroken moment realizing that he had no hope to getting to Vanessa.

          After reading this book, left me an unsettling but satisfied feeling. It was a slice of life, because the way it was told realistically. I would recommend you reading this book because there might be things that you can find out about this tragic love life just like I did. As I started reading from the beginning of the book it made me kept reading and finding out Tim's appalling story, it's as if I was Duncan in the story. Elizabeth Laban did a fascinating story by creating two different viewpoints and synchronizing the two characters situation in the book together.