Grosse Pointe Girl: Tales from a Suburban Adolescence

Welcome to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where social rank is determined by the age of your money and the dryness of your martini. The new girl in town, Emma Harris, must prove herself hip to the rigid rules of adolescent conformity, even if it means ditching her new best friend and memorizing the complete oeuvre of the cool boys' garage band. Lunchroom politics, unwritten dress codes, slow-dance etiquette, bittersweet crushes — and that most painful of indignities, gym class — drive her quest for cool. Add the requisite country club membership, the hierarchy of the zip code, and the politics of divorce, and Grosse Pointe Girl serves as an indispensable road map through the dysfunction privilege brings.

In negotiating life's innate yet inescapable challenges, McCandless teams up with renowned comics illustrator Christine Norrie to render, in words and pictures, every mandatory rite of passage — from that first tube of stolen lipstick to field trips with mom to the intimate apparel department. Grosse Pointe Girl is the hilariously poignant growing pain of life that time never forgets.

"No matter which side of the tracks you come from, Grosse Pointe Girl will hit you where you live." Pam Houston

"[T]hese tales are darker and more elegiac than the bouncy prose suggests." Kirkus Reviews

The new girl in town, Emma Harris, must prove herself hip to the rigid rules of suburban adolescent conformity, even if it means ditching her new best friend and memorizing the complete oeuvre of the cool boys' garage band.

Grosse Pointe Girl is a collection of episodes borrowed from Sarah Grace McCandless' upbringing in one of the most affluent suburbs in the country. Braiding together tales from the frontlines of her adolescence, McCandless' work brings readers into what was her world, a place both whimsical and awkward, in a city haunted by the dysfunction privilege often brings.

Welcome to Grosse Pointe, Michigan, where social rank is determined by the age of your money and the dryness of your martini.

The new girl in town, Emma Harris, must prove herself hip to the rigid rules of adolescent conformity. The quest for cool, she discovers, is one long final exam. To pass she must be cruel to be kind (ditching her best friend for the popular crowd), dress to impress (trading her favorite Esprit shirt for three plastic bracelets), and master the art of seduction (puckering up with Mulberry Stain or Peaches 'n' Cream lip gloss). Life is all about making choices — the right ones.

Will Emma's social acrobatics put her on the short list for that coveted country club membership? Will the digits of her zip code pass muster? If her parents split up, will the gossip help or hurt her in the rankings? Grosse Pointe Girl serves as an indispensable road map through the dysfunction privilege brings. So put on your Guess? jeans and your jelly shoes and come along for the ride to the adolescent days that time forgot, but you never will.

Sarah Grace McCandless teams up with renowned comics illustrator Christine Norrie to render, in words and pictures, every mandatory rite of passage for a teenage girl from that first tube of stolen lipstick to field trips with mom to the intimate apparel department.

Sarah Grace was born in Chicago and raised in the greater Metro Detroit area, primarily in, guess where, Grosse Pointe. This is why she says "maam" instead of "mom" and "calledge" instead of "college." She received a B.A. in Creative Writing, Theatre, and Communications from Michigan State University but ditched plans to attend graduate school in Kansas three weeks before move-in day and drove across the country instead. Grosse Pointe Girl is her first published collection.