The Girls: A Novel by Emma Cline

Description

An indelible portrait of girls, the women they become, and that moment in life when everything can go horribly wrong—this stunning first novel is perfect for readers of Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides and Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad.
 
Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence.
 
Emma Cline’s remarkable debut novel is gorgeously written and spellbinding, with razor-sharp precision and startling psychological insight. The Girls is a brilliant work of fiction.

Advance praise for The Girls
 
“The Girls is a brilliant and intensely consuming novel—imposing not just for a writer so young, but for any writer, any time.”—Richard Ford
 
“Emma Cline has an unparalleled eye for the intricacies of girlhood, turning the stuff of myth into something altogether more intimate. She reminds us that behind so many of our culture’s fables exists a girl: unseen, unheard, angry. This book will break your heart and blow your mind.”—Lena Dunham

“Emma Cline’s first novel positively hums with fresh, startling, luminous prose. The Girls announces the arrival of a thrilling new voice in American fiction.”—Jennifer Egan
 
“I don’t know which is more amazing, Emma Cline’s understanding of human beings or her mastery of language.”—Mark Haddon, New York Times bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Editoral Review

An Amazon Best Book of June 2016: I was put off by the idea of this book–the twentysomething author is writing about the 60s, an era that may even predate her parents; it features a very Manson-like cult (really, is there anything more to say?) and, well, it comes with a lot of pre-publication “buzz.” So hear this: The Girls really is as good as they’re saying. First of all: it’s called The Girls for a reason; While this mesmerizing debut does involve a charismatic Mansonesque leader in California in the late 1960s, it is more focused on the girls in his cult, the ones who enthrall 14 year old Evie Boyd, a self-conscious child of divorce, privilege and malaise. The tale of the girls and the cult and the ultimate violence they commit is told by Evie, now a middle aged woman with regrets. Some of the parallels Cline tries to draw between the teenaged Evie’s rage and that of some current young people in her life can be strained but Cline’s observations are preternaturally mature and her writing strong. (A character the girls are attempting to rob lies “on her kitchen floor, calling my name like a right answer.”) The subject matter may be familiar–and I don’t just mean Manson, I mean the way teenagers can be terrified and terrifying all at once–Cline’s The Girls is surprisingly timeless and perfectly creepy. –Sara Nelson, The Amazon Book Review