| Product: |
The New Girl - Emily Perkins |
| Date: |
01/09/01 (206 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Good writer
Disadvantages: Weird
A recent visit to the library rewarded me with what at first sight appeared to be a cracking book, a good British contemporary novel, but turned out to be a slightly odd, slightly confused and slightly confusing read. Having said that, don’t get the wrong idea, Emily Perkins is definitely a good writer and my feelings on the book may be more a matter of taste than anything else – I’ll detail what I didn’t like and you can make your own mind up.
As a positive, the book was started and finished on the same day, which at 260 pages isn’t an awesome feat, but at least indicates she has the ability to compel. Although I didn’t particularly like the book in the final analysis, I found myself driven to discover what she was trying to get at, whilst possessing a vain hope that something would give and a dawn of enlightenment would occur.
So what’s it all about? Well first of all, to the cover flaps. Emily Perkins lives in London and was born in 1970. Yippee, I thought, someone close to my own age, I should really enjoy this. A quote from the Sunday Times Magazine says “With a stringent wit and fresh, earthy prose, Perkins is one of Britain’s most exciting young writers” Stringent wit she does have, the occasional swear word doesn’t put her in Irvine Welsh’s league though by any means, and the other comment is slyly misleading but I’ll come back to that.
The blurb says “It is the beginning of the summer holidays in a town in the middle of nowhere” That this is a literal statement isn’t obvious immediately, but as reality gradually dawned it annoyed me more and more. Again, this is down to taste, and maybe I just like things too clear-cut. Anyway, in this town live a trio of girls who’ve been friends since they were toddlers. Julia, Rachel and Chicky.
The story is mostly about the summer that follows their final year at school. It r
evolves around the arrival of the rather un-likeable culture snob Miranda, a young graduate who turns up to run a self-awareness course at the local community centre, and how this affects the girls, who sign up, and their families. I’m not going to go into too much depth, as the plot is reasonably interesting and shouldn’t be spoiled.
Suffice to say, although their lives change it didn’t really come across as a coming of age novel, it’s more of an expose of a small town lifestyle that I didn’t get sucked into believing. Miranda’s Gestalt style classes were by far the most entertaining part, and I wished Perkins had made more of them. If you’re not aware, Gestalt is a type of psychoanalysis/counselling that pushes the individual to discover their problems and the answers through Drama, art and other media.
So what was annoying about “The new girl”? Well initially, I was enjoying it. The characters were believable and the situations familiar. The town seemed to me a bit like Denton, the place that ITVs Inspector Jack Frost haunts, and I could sort of relate to it. As I twigged that it was nothing like Denton really, the disquiet set in. There are no references to pop culture at all, something I found disappointing, as life without pop culture isn’t life, and one mention of Play station was just about the only thing that places the book in the last decade. The single reference to currency though, was the Dollar, and I thought, “Hang on a minute, this is a con, it’s set in the US”.
Further occasional mentions of malls, stores, marijuana, Raccoons, and mountains, along with names like Hunter, Vance and Bryce reinforced this. However other references argued differently. When Bryce, the towns only openly gay male, is winding up his detractors, he says of Petey’s brother “He’s got a nice arse” Definitely not an Americanism. The school leavers h
ave just finished Year 6 too, rather than 13th grade, or whatever it is the States and there are mentions of shops, pubs and biscuits rather than cookies.
None of the dialogue really has an American ring to it either, so I was getting frustrated. Then the mention of a Utility Vehicle and wild Mynah Birds put another slant on it. This is an antipodean term for a pick up, and as far as I’m aware Mynah Birds aren’t native to the US, so were we down under? Mmn, didn’t know Raccoons were marsupials, but hey, I don’t know everything. Harking back to Year 6 – in the UK it’s 6th Year, if I remember correctly, and Year 6 brings back memories of Donald Fletcher and Summer Bay.
Well Down Under doesn’t really seem likely, as this imaginary town is so far from the City that most of the inhabitants have never been there, and the City isn’t by the sea – how many cities in Australia or New Zealand aren’t by the sea? None, unless my geography’s worse than I thought. Or maybe Canberra at 1/3 million population counts as a City? The City Perkins describes doesn’t seem too much like Canberra though.
As you’ll be able to tell, I got completely hung up on this. It must have been a deliberate act by Emily Perkins to truly make her town “In the middle of nowhere”, as its difficult to imagine it being a catalogue of mistakes. And her witty prose and amusing observations imply a sharp, smart lady who doesn’t often make mistakes. As a vehicle for conveying that she was talking about small towns in general, it failed for me. Having lived in the country since my preteens, we were never anything really like this except in the microcosms of teenage life she describes, and to me it was a pointless exercise trying to create “Anywheresville”.
I looked on the net for more info on Emily Perkins, to try and find out what was behind this strangely placeles
s and timeless book. Unsurprisingly, to me anyway, she’s actually a New Zealander which could account for the town being nothing I could relate to – more than that I couldn’t find. Thanks for nothing, Sunday Times Magazine. Better research next time.
If you don’t care about realism and pop culture, and have little regard for spatial awareness, then this could be a mighty fine read. I guess it’ll have more appeal to younger readers and may even have been written for teenagers, it’s just too difficult to pin down. I read the amazon.co.uk review of the book after writing this, and they claimed that she’s captured the angst and emotions felt by teenage girls perfectly. Hmm, possibly, it wasn’t my thing though, but she's a good writer if you can put up with surreal reality.
Summary:
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