![]() A Bad and Stupid Girl (Michigan Literary Fiction Awards) $24.00 I've read all of Jean McGarry's novels and story collections and this one ranks at the top. The assured, sometimes whimsical but always well-controlled style is here, but there's something about the characters Siri and Esther: they are ingratiating young women who grow on you as they themselves grow. In fact, Ms. McGarry's story works as a double bildungsroman, a chronicle of the intellectual growth spurt that can invigorate one's early college years. Although Ms. McGarry is an esteemed professor there is nothing of the usual academic musk: the college is too odd, the story too focused on underclasswomen's mental life to rehase the fixations of the conventional college novel. What starts as a variant on The Odd Couple evolves into a type of quest with both girls breaking free from their roots and trading intellectual places. Dare we ask for a sequel? |
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