Girlchild: A Novel

Marc Notes: Copyright date 2012.; A novel--Cover.; Includes discussion questions.; Obsessively following the edicts of the Girl Scouts Handbook in spite of her lack of a troop, young Rory longs to escape the Reno trailer park where she lives with her bartender mother.; A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice. Review Quotes: "A voice as fresh as hers is so rare that at times I caught myself cheering. . . . I'd go anywhere with this writer."---Susannah Meadows, "The New York Times" "So fresh, original, and funny you'll be in awe... Tupelo Hassman has created a character you'll never forget. Rory Dawn Hendrix of the Calle has as precocious and endearing a voice as Holden Caulfield of Central Park."---"The Boston Globe" "A lyrical and fiercely accomplished first novel... In Hassman's skilled hands, what could have been an unrelenting chronicle of desolation becomes a lovely tribute to the soaring, defiant spirit of a survivor."---"People" "Moments of strange beauty enhance our sense of the Calle community....[Hassman] makes Rory's milieu feel universal."---Megan Mayhew Bergman, "The New York Times Book Review" "Powerful... Rory transcends her bleak situation through dark humor and unaccountable smarts."---"San Francisco Chronicle " "This amazing debut spills over with love, but is still absolutely unflinching and real."---Aimee Bender, author of "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"Biographical Note: Tupelo Hassman graduated from Columbia's MFA program. Her writing has been published in the "Portland Review Literary Journal," "Paper Street Press," "Tantalum," "We Still Like," and "Zyzzyva," and by 100 Word Story, Five Chapters.com, and Invisible City Audio Tours. Review Quotes:"This first novel is not like anything you or I have ever read. Something between a shocking expose, a defiant treatise, a prose poem, and an exuberant Girl Scout manual, it is always formally inventive and bursting with energy. Yes, this is an insider's report confirming the worst you ever allowed yourself to think about lowdown trailer parks. And yet somehow Tupelo Hassman's book is also a testament to joy and beauty, and to the saving power of language wherever it gets a foothold. She has irrepressible high spirits, which flow forth in this case as brilliance and lyricism. Tupelo Hassman loves life in spite of everything, and you can't help loving this novel and her." --Jaimy Gordon, author of the National Book Award winner "Lord of Misrule ""Life is a crazy risk hardly worth attempting for a girl puzzling out her direction without a map in the poorest part of Reno. Justice there seems about as troubling as what it's supposed to remedy. The voice in Tupelo Hassman's "Girlchild "is funny and pained, confused and outrageous--a triumph and a philosophical treatise on survival." --Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of the National Book Award finalist "American Salvage ""Tupelo Hassman's ruthless dissection of the laws, traditions, and values of a trailer park will leave you horrified and laughing uproariously. "Girlchild "is at once a ragtag anthem to the generations of single mothers raising their children on their own, a brilliant critique of the inadequacies of social services, and a colorful depiction of the extraordinary hurdles that children who break the cycle of poverty have to face. But mostly it is a description of the seismic transformations that happen within each of us as we fly the coop. Hassman's wildly inventive prose explodes off the page." --Heather O'Neill, author of "Lullabies for Little Criminals ""This amazing debut spills over with love, but is still absolutely unflinching and real. That is no easy combo to pull off, and TupelolReview Quotes:"Beautiful . . . Ms. Hassman is such a poised storyteller that her prose practically struts. Her words are as elegant as they are fierce. A voice as fresh as hers is so rare that at times I caught myself cheering . . . I don't know about you, but I'd go anywhere with this writer." --Susannah Meadows, "The New York Times """Girlchild" . . . unfolds a compelling, layered narrative told by a protagonist with a voice so fresh, original, and funny you'll be in awe. This novel rocks . . . In "Girlchild" Tupelo Hassman has created a character you'll never forget. Rory Dawn Hendrix of the Calle has as precocious and endearing a voice as Holden Caulfield of Central Park. When you finish this novel, your sorrow at turning the last page will be eased by your excitement at what this sassy, talented author will do next." --Mameve Medwed, "The Boston Globe ""The real pleasure of the book comes from following the wisecracking, tough and sensitive Rory as she struggles to survive and escape the sort of life no girl should have to lead." --Michelle Quint, "San Francisco Chronicle ""It's Rory's voice, as well as the offbeat ways in which she presents her coming-of-age story that make "Girlchild" so memorable . . . Rory is like a miniature Margaret Mead, observing and chronicling the life of the trailer park with an insider's knowledge and an anthropologist's detachment . . . It's a testament to Hassman's assurance as a writer that, even though we readers have the option of leaving, we hunker down in that trailer park with Rory for the long dry season of her youth." --Maureen Corrigan, "Fresh Air ""In "Girlchild, "Hassman's spunky, shy and almost accidentally""intelligent heroine, Rory Dawn Hendrix, is living in a trailer park outside Reno, 'south of nowhere.' Her mother, Jo, is a truck-stop bartender prone to trusting the wrong men . . . The book's portraiture is vivid and hauntingly unfamiliar; Hassman's personal history matters less than the artistic cReview Quotes: "I'd go anywhere with this writer.... A voice as fresh as hers is so rare that at times I caught myself cheering."---Susannah Meadows, "The New York Times" "So fresh, original, and funny you'll be in awe... Tupelo Hassman has created a character you'll never forget. Rory Dawn Hendrix of the Calle has as precocious and endearing a voice as Holden Caulfield of Central Park."---"The Boston Globe" "A lyrical and fiercely accomplished first novel...[In] Hassman's skilled hands, what could have been an unrelenting chronicle of desolation becomes a lovely tribute to the soaring, defiant spirit of a survivor."---"People" "Moments of strange beauty enhance our sense of the Calle community....[Hassman] makes Rory's milieu feel universal."---Megan Mayhew Bergman, "The New York Times Book Review" "Powerful... Rory transcends her bleak situation through dark humor and unaccountable smarts."---"San Francisco Chronicle " "This amazing debut spills over with love, but is still absolutely unflinching and real."---Aimee Bender, author of "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake"Publisher Marketing: A "New York Times Book Review" Editors' Choice Rory Hendrix, the least likely of Girl Scouts, hasn't got a troop or a badge to call her own. But she still borrows the "Handbook" from the elementary school library to pore over its advice, looking for tips to get off the Calle--the Reno trailer park where she lives with her mother, Jo, the sweet-faced, hard-luck bartender at the Truck Stop. Rory's been told she is one of the "third-generation bastards surely on the road to whoredom," and she's determined to break the cycle. As Rory struggles with her mother's habit of trusting the wrong men, and the mixed blessing of being too smart for her own good, she finds refuge in books and language. From diary entries, social workers' reports, story problems, arrest records, family lore, and her grandmother's letters, Tupelo Hassman's "Girlchild" crafts a devastating collage that shows us Rory's world while she searches for the way out of it. Review Citations: People Weekly 02/25/2013 pg. 51 (EAN 9781250024060, Paperback) New York Times Book Review 03/31/2013 pg. 28 (EAN 9781250024060, Paperback) Audio File 08/01/2012 pg. 32 (EAN 9781452607498, Compact Disc) Publishers Weekly 12/12/2011 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) - *Starred Review Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2012 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) Booklist 02/01/2012 pg. 26 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 02/19/2012 pg. 7 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) New York Times Book Review 02/26/2012 pg. 22 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) People Weekly 03/05/2012 pg. 57 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) LJ Best Books of Year 12/01/2012 pg. 24 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) Booklist Ed Choice Adu Bk YA's 01/01/2013 pg. 10 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) Wilson Fiction Catalog 01/01/2014 pg. 415 (EAN 9780374162573, Hardcover) Contributor Bio:  Hassman, Tupelo Tupelo Hassman has an MFA in fiction writing from Columbia University and has been published in "Paper Street Press", the "Portland Review Literary Journal", "Tantalum", "We Still Like", and "ZYZZYVA".