gods with a little g: A Novel - Hardcover

Hassman, Tupelo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374164460 ISBN 13: 9780374164461

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019

Synopsis

From the acclaimed author of Girlchild, this gritty, irreverent novel sees a young misfit grow into hope

Unsinkable and wrecked by grief, motherless and aimless and looking for connection, Helen Dedleder is a girl with a gift she doesn't want to use and a pack of friends who are all just helping each other get by.

So cut off from the rest of the world that even the internet is blocked (never mind traffic in and out), Rosary, California, is run by evangelicals but was named by Catholics. It’s a town on very formal relations with its neighbors, one that boasts an oil refinery as well as a fairly sizable population of teenagers.

For Helen and her gang of misfits, the tire yard, sex, and beer help pass the days until they turn eighteen and leave town. Her best friends, Win and Rainbolene, late arrivals to Rosary, are particularly keen to depart―Rain because she’ll finally be able to get the hormones she needs to fully become herself. Watching over them is Aunt Bev, an outcast like the kids, who runs the barely tolerated Psychic Encounter Shoppe and tries to keep Helen connected to her own psychic talents―a gift passed down from her mother. Tensions are building, though, in every way. Threats against the Psychic Encounter Shoppe become serious actions. One of the kids gets in trouble, and then another. And Helen can see some things before they happen, but somehow can't see the most important things happening right in front of her.

Tupelo Hassman's gods with a little g bursts and splinters with flawed, lovable characters whose haphazard investigations into each others's hearts will reshape your understanding of trust, how to build a family, and how to make a future you can see.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of August 2019: Diabolically irreverent, sardonic, and sad, gods with a little g is a deeply felt novel about belonging, loss, and sex—I mean love. The novel is about a rebellious teenager growing up in a fanatically religious town with her father, who so deeply mourns the death of his wife that his daughter must remind him of the most basic tasks—showering, for one. She’s punky but beneath the bravado is a good kid despite her hanging out with a crew that likes to punch each other for fun. Make no mistake, there are dark moments to this book, but it’s also about a teenager making her way through life—making friends, making fun, pretending it’s all fine as she finds the parts of her that are lost. Hassman’s writing vibrates with honesty, hilarity, and twists of language that sparkle with gusto. Very few books have the ricochet verve that this novel does. It is special, and amidst the hardship, the beer cans, and the rebellion, there is great effervescent hope, which keeps us all going. —Al Woodworth

About the Author

Tupelo Hassman’s debut novel, Girlchild, was the recipient of the American Library Association’s Alex Award. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, Harper’s Bazaar, Imaginary Oklahoma, The Independent, Portland Review, and ZYZZYVA, among other publications. She is the recipient of the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award and the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, and is the first American to have won London’s Literary Death Match. She earned her MFA at Columbia University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 0374164460
• ISBN 13: 9780374164461
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 368