Published by Picador
Publication date: February 5th 2013
Genres: Childhood, Coming-of-age, Contemporary, Fiction, Literary
Well, well, well…finally, after two months of all-right-but-not-great reading I’ve been knocked off my feet. Not by a new release, but by a 2013 novel from my Goodreads to-read list. I’m not going to quibble; I’m just thrilled to have read something I loved so much that it’s hard to find the best words for it. Tupelo Hassman’s Girlchild is a piercing novel of childhood with Rory Dawn Hendrix, a seven-year-old living in Reno, Nevada in a trailer park with her mother, a bartender who likes to drink and date the wrong men. She is such a supernova spirit that she is not so much being written as being let loose. Things like no Girl Scout troop to be found or friends to join one with don’t stop Rory. Instead, she starts her own troop with herself as the only member. She introduces herself as the
Feebleminded daughter of a feebleminded daughter, herself the product of feebleminded stock,
when really the women in her family just seem to be blessed with pretty faces and the inability to make good choices about men. Still, the feeble minded label sticks even though there’s little proof of it, especially in Rory’s case.
Hassman makes no overt attempt at pulling on heartstrings with the pathos of Rory’s reality. Instead, she interfuses Girlchild’s chapters with the reports of the case worker assigned to Rory’s mother, fake multiple choice questions on very real-life subjects and Rory’s own factual recitation of her life. She keeps chapters short and each leads to the next with the off-handed nature of cocktail party banter even if the topic is anything but appropriate for a party. The Girl Scout’s Handbook, Rory’s bible, has chapters of its own where Hassman smashes its bland old-fashioned lessons against the realities of Rory’s life. At every turn, Girlchild astounds via Hassman’s ferocious imagination.
It can feel hard to admit loving a story of childhood abuse but Hassman uses Rory’s pain as a crucible—the hottest heat makes the strongest steel. Rory Dawn Hendrix is that kind of steel and Girlchild is that kind of novel. Yes, her mother leaves her with an abused teen babysitter who pimps her out to her father to avoid his sexual assaults herself, but this horror is tempered with the love of the Hendrix women, who, with all their faults, unleash a righteous wrath when the truth comes out. There are no undamaged women in the novel but love, humor and the will to survive abound. At the center of it all, there is Rory Dawn with her molten core of white-hot determination and life force, leaping off the page into the heart.
Well – this sounds right up my alley. Dang you for making my TBR list even longer!
It’s worth it and it’s probably available right now at your library!
I’m so glad you loved this. I thought it was fantastic and really didn’t get the attention it deserved.
I read this a while ago, so don’t remember it exactly, but I do remember loving it. I wish I remember who recommended it to me, and I hope I thanked them at the time. I’m so happy you found something that knocked your socks off. Here’s to more of that!
OH, MY GOSH! I loved this novel! I was not blogging at the time; in fact, I was in a situation (not sure how much of my story you’ve read) where I was spending time with a lot of other women, away from home, and we passed around a LOT of books. I remember discussing this one with a friend and we both decided that, in spite of everything she experienced and how badly things could have gone, we both had the sense that Rory was going to be okay. I have horrible “book memory,” so I haven’t thought of this one in awhile, but what a great read. I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
That’s exactly how I felt, Tara! I saw her in my mind’s eye striding off into her own life. Maybe overly optimistic, but it’s what I need to believe these days. She prevailed.
I read Girlchild a few years ago and loved it. too. I have some family that lives in the Reno area, so that added a little to Rory’s story for me. (The cover shot looks like where some of them live!) I’m so glad you found a book you enjoyed so much.
Wow glad you found a novel that knocked you off your feet. I haven’t heard of this one, but I will jot it down on my list. How did you find this one?
At some point I added it to my Goodreads to-read list years ago and when scrolling through it for something to read, saw it, saw that bloggers I knew I had read and loved it and went with it. I do love Goodreads for that!
Sometimes the older books turn out to be the best books! Just added this one to my list…
The child abuse in this book sounds too horrifying for me to consider picking it up, but I’m glad you found a book that really blew you away! The non-tradition format sounds like it could be very powerful.
It’s not easy, Katie, but somehow the fact that Rory is so strong makes it easier to handle. Sadly, it felt like a fairly realistic portrayal of what can go wrong for uneducated single mothers. They HAVE to work but what do you do with your children? A lot of social issues.