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I didn't want to write a novel. I love novels, and live in them, but I have rarely felt that they reflect the real shape of actual experience. There's never a plot in my life! (Novel Exceptions: Kafka, Faulkner, Woolf.) I wanted to write something in the messy, friendly shape of reality. Girl reality. This book, Georgia Under Water (which won a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers award) is a series of (dis)connected super-real stories. Not slices of life. Life unpeeled. It takes place in 1970s Orlando, Florida. The soundtrack is Lynyrd Skynrd drowning out Freddie Fender. And Georgia (the main character, a bold, terrified and fast twelve year old girl) rules.
Reviews
"Unlike other coming of age fiction, this collection flaunts its messy contradictions and offers no safe place from which to view the family's destruction. As disturbing and absorbing as adolescence itself." ~ The New York Times Book Review
"In her debut collection of short stories, Heather Sellers explores the life and mind of dangerously naive teenager Georgia Jackson. With just the right amount of detail and description, Sellers spins stories of a young girl coming of age... Each story unveils yet another element of the girl's psyche which is constantly concocting desperate attention-grabbing scenarios. 'I wanted to live in order to tell people,' she gushes 'but in order to be interesting, my good stories required my death.'" ~ Philadelphia Weekly
"Eccentric, edgy, provocative, melancholy. Recommended." ~ Library Journal
"Though extremely bright, Georgia is, like most girls her age, confused about love and life in general. She is obsessed with sexuality but she often has to play the adult when dealing with her parents. Sellers' prose is strong and vibrant, full of striking imagery and inventive turns of phrase. She perfectly captures the harrowing experience of adolescence and infuses even the darkest situations with an appealing absurdity. Readers will find it hard not to be charmed. Perfect for fans of Lynda Barry." ~ ***Publisher's Weekly, May 7, 2001, Starred Review***
Read a story from the collection, "Myself as a Delicious Peach" (pdf).
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