Beautiful Girls - Softcover

Bauman, Beth Ann

3.48

153 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931561664 ISBN 13: 9781931561662

Publisher: Macadam Cage Pub, 2004

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Beautiful Girls is a dazzling debut collection about the secret lives of girls and women. The characters who inhabit Beth Ann Bauman's stories are the timid, the not-quite-fabulous, the public school Ophelias, who yearn for something grander than their current lot. These stories illuminate the search for love, friendship, connection, and identity.
In "True," an exquisitely shy teenage girl tries to fathom the hidden secrets of beauty from a boy who's "the prettiest person in the entire school." A lonely divorcee in "Safeway" wanders the darkened aisles of a grocery store during a power outage, and becomes "certain a touch of rot had taken root in her heart...and that she still might live better." In "Wash, Rinse, Spin," a hapless young woman loses her laundry and must resort to the decrepit wardrobe she wore while working in B movies, as her dying father fades in her hometown. And in the title story, voracious girls who long for love and admiration compete in a town pageant.

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From the Inside Flap:

"Beautiful Girls reads more like a tenth collection than a first one, a big elegant box full of surprises. I admired them. I was jealous of them. I was—I am—completely impressed." —Kevin Canty, author of A Stranger in This World and Honeymoon

"Beautiful Girls is a knockout! Anyone who’s interested in the secret lives of beautiful and not-so-beautiful girls, and those who know them, will love this book. I couldn’t put it down until I’d finished it, and then I started all over again. Beth Ann Bauman is a new favorite!" —Alice Elliot Dark, author of In the Gloaming

These stories are wonderfully crafted. The tight prose cuts like a surgical knife into the lives of the characters and gives us an anatomy lesson in the human heart. The endings are especially strong and, like the last lines of great poems, shine a light that illuminates the whole of the stories.

Beautiful Girls is a beautiful collection. —South Florida Sun-Sentinel

About the Author:

Beth Ann Bauman holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Arizona, and her short stories have appeared in several literary journals. She lives in New York City. Beautiful Girls is her first book.

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