“This first novel is not like anything you or I have ever read. Something between a shocking exposé, 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 Tupelo Hassman does it repeatedly with precision and grace. Rory D. is ebulliently alive on the page; she’s really that kind of fresh new voice people talk about, leaving us with a completely memorable character.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
“From the first page of Tupelo Hassman’s brilliant debut, I fell in love with its unforgettable narrator. I couldn’t stop reading until the heartbreaking but hopeful end, rooting for Rory Dawn Hendrix to make her own destiny.” —Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
“I’m smitten by Tupelo Hassman’s debut. The beauty of this story is how it plays: great turns in language, humor that points to sadness, and a structure that is messy and tidy all at the same time. Girlchild is overwhelming in an engaging and beautiful way.” —Salvador Plascencia, author of The People of Paper
