Book Club: The Girls: A Novel, by Emma Cline
It’s Lyric, It’s Complex, It’s Literature
It’s Lyric, It’s Complex, It’s Literature
The Girls: A Novel, by Emma Cline, is set in the late 1960’s when the protagonist Evie gets involved with a cult a la The Manson Family. This is the author’s debut novel, and after reading it, I’m sure there will be subsequent tomes. I, however, will probably not be reading them.
The book was incredibly well-crafted. If a novel could be artisan this would be it. In the vein of Ann Patchett, Emma Cline has infused her novel with unique and vivid descriptions of the otherwise mundane. Every single page in brimming with a style of verbage that will mark it as distinctly Emma Cline. This is not the sort of book you can skim. As our lazy eyes are wont to do, anytime I would drift I would feel a bit lost even if it was just skipping one paragraph because each word of prose has a purpose and enhances the understanding of the story. The uniqueness of her style does not lend toward skimming – at all.
Aside from the style that is stupefyingly good from such a fledgling writer, the story is solid. It begins when Evie is older and is told from her point of view dipping forward and back between past and present. The novel does not end in an aimless open-to-interpretation-annoyingly-“literaturey” way. The story is excellent. It is fashioned well. It is told beautifully.
So why, why will I not follow this author! First, the actual story is not my bag (baby). Cults, murder, depressed adolescent girls (because Evie was definitely depressed) – not really my thing. I know you are thinking but her next book probably won’t have the same subject matter. And, you would be correct. It is unlikely Cline’s next novel would follow this topic. That just brings me to style. It was not a good fit for me. I think she is amazingly talented (and not just for her age). The Girls is a spectacular work of literature. Most books in the literature section should not be there. This one? Absolutely. Every page I was amazed that her combination of words are just so good. Yep, simple as that. So good. But not my thing.
Reading her style felt like picking at a raw wound, occasionally rubbing some grit in there. You know you should get up and go clean it but instead, you decide to first take a dip in some brown murky water. I have a ridiculous amount of library fines for all the books I put off while trying to amp up the momentum to finish this one. I think it’s enough to say it’s, me not her. Should you read it? Probably. If nothing else it will help you to recognize good writing and, what’s more, it may be your thing.
5 Interesting Things About the Author, Emma Cline:
- Has a flip-phone to stay low-tech so as not to get distracted. Wrote this book in a renovated 9×12 foot shed in a friend’s backyard in Brooklyn. (i-D)(PBS)
- She was a child actor. (IMDB)
- Has six siblings – all of them are within ten years of each other. (Vogue)
- Growing up, had a literary crush on Sherlock Holmes. (PBS)
- Keeps a running diary in a Word document she’s had since high school. It is not a traditional diary of events but small descriptions that may only be one or two sentences long. (BookForum)
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