It’s a hard road for the first-time novelist.
First of all, you're confronted by a general lack of interest in fiction, unless you’re James Patterson or Stephen King.
Then there’s another Everest in your way: How do you get attention for your writing, unless you’re a serial killer, disgraced politician or a pregnant reality-show sleaze?
Of course, there’s also talent.
That’s the route Tupelo Hassman is using.
You’ll be hearing a lot about her first novel, Girlchild (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $24). Mostly, it’ll have to do with the strong voice of the narrator, a young trailer dweller named Rory Dawn Hendrix. She’s third generation poor, growing up around a truck-stop bar and among legions of mouthbreathers.
But, of course, she has a voice, and a view of the world shaped by the Girl Scouts Handbook. If I tell you she’s indomitable, then you might think this is some Disneyesque rags-to-riches story. It is not. But it is a story told in a unique voice, a voice of a young girl who tries to work through the agonies and the ecstasies of modern life among the have-nots. Rory is a child left behind.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2012.