Synopses & Reviews
A powerful, voice-driven novel with the breakneck pace that people have come to expect from Lindsay Hunter
The Chicago Tribune called her stories “Mesmerizing . . . Visceral . . . Exquisite.” The Boston Globe called them “incredibly urgent.” And now we have the great pleasure of publishing Lindsay Hunters searing, poignant, hilarious first novel, Ugly Girls.
Ugly Girls, at its core, is about the friendship between two girls, Perry and Baby Girl, and how that friendship descends into chaos, taking their world and the identities they hold dear with it. Their friendship is woven from the threads of never-ending dares and the struggle with power, their loyalty something they attend to like a pet but forget to feed. Ugliness is something they trade between themselves, one ugly on the outside and one on the inside.
While the girls spend their nights sneaking out, stealing cars for joyrides, and eating French fries at the twenty-four-hour Dennys, danger lurks. Jamey is pining after Perry from behind the computer screen inside his mothers trailer. Hes been watching the girls for a while, on Facebook and in person (though theyve never seen him in the flesh), posing as a boy from a high school a couple of neighborhoods over. When they finally meet Jamey face-to-face, they quickly realize hes far from a nice high-school boy, and the girls will do whatever is necessary to protect themselves.
Review
Praise for Lindsay Hunter
“Hunter is remarkably talented at taking sentences and twining them around the brain, creating a beautiful pattern out of ugliness . . . use[ing] language as a tool to excavate our entrenched humanity.” —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Review
"Lindsay Hunter is a dazzling talent, and with Ugly Girls she has written what will surely
go down as a new American classic. Every character is complex, every scene is dense as a bullet,
and every sentence pulses with electricity. Magnificent."—Christina Henriquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans
"Ugly Girls is a thrilling joyride of a novel, a dark and vital book that feels threatening in its rawness, its power, its unflinching portrait of youth. Lindsay Hunter lays bare the complexities of two girls' friendship—their taunting and cruelty, their rivalry and insecurity and abiding protectiveness—and she does it with urgency, wry humor, and surprising, menacing beauty."
Bret Anthony Johnson, Author of Corpus Christi and Remember Me Like This
"Lindsay Hunter is the mistress of grit, all the dirty little details that make a story feel real and sad and true." —Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins
"I am in awe of Lindsay Hunter. Her debut novel is a canny examination of American girlhood
under pressure—gritty, terrifying, and funny as hell. As Perry and Baby Girl, bound together by
a friendship that is at once tender and toxic, hurtle through their world of trailer parks and
stolen cars and lies, the dangerous secrets they uncover are matched only by the darkness
simmering within. Ugly Girls is spiky, electric, unforgettable." —Laura van den Berg, author of The Isle of Youth
"The first great twenty-first-century novel about the dirty realities of class has finally arrived.
Baby Girl and Perry are a pair of ugly outlaws conceived by one of Americas great outlaw voices. They steal everything they can, but this is the type of book thats going to steal your time. You better get ready, people. To use Baby Girls favorite word, this is one bad-ass 'bitch' of a book." —Scott McClanahan, author of Crapalachia and Hill William
Synopsis
Perry and Baby Girl are best friends, though you wouldnt know it if you met them. Their friendship is woven from the threads of never-ending dares and power struggles, their loyalty fierce but incredibly fraught. They spend their nights sneaking out of their trailers, stealing cars for joyrides, and doing all they can to appear hard to the outside world.With all their energy focused on deceiving themselves and the people around them, they dont know that real danger lurks: Jamey, an alleged high school student from a nearby town, has been pining after Perry from behind the computer screen in his mothers trailer for some time now, following Perry and Baby Girls every move—on Facebook, via instant messaging and text,and, unbeknownst to the girls, in person. When Perry and Baby Girl finally agree to meet Jamey face-to-face, they quickly realize hes far from the shy high school boy they thought he was, and theyll do whatever is necessary to protect themselves. Lindsay Hunter's stories have been called "mesmerizing. . . visceral . . . exquisite" (Chicago Tribune), and in Ugly Girls she calls on all her faculties as a wholly original storyteller to deliver the most searing, poignant, powerful debut novel in years.
About the Author
Lindsay Hunter is the author of the story collections Don't Kiss Me and Daddy's. She lives in Chicago, where she is the cofounder and cohost of the flash-fiction reading series Quickies!. Ugly Girls is her first novel.