Sixteen year olds Maya and Roe form an intense friendship when they find themselves cast as outsiders at an all girls boarding school. Sharing their life stories, and curiosity about the adult world, they wonder how they might become “people” with style and character as opposed to school girls. When they move beyond the enclosed world of the school to experience the city, and relationships with men, both girls test the line between an emerging sense of self and its total disintegration.

Praise

"Like Virginia Wolf or Doris Lessing, Swann has a sharp ear for young women's inner dialogues....Her spare prose (save for a smattering of lovely similes) and straightforward plot are interrupted, wonderfully by telling insights." --Alizah Salario, Ms. Magazine

About the Author(s)

Maxine Swann

Mazime Swann's short story "Flower Children" won the Cohen Award, The O. Henry Award, the Pushcart Prize and was included in The Best American Short Stories. Serious Girls is her first novel.