What is it about the viewpoint of a young girl that draws me into a novel? As a middle-aged man, my experience is so different than that of the young, female protagonist that I can’t help but wonder what her experience is. This was very clear in my recent reading of Peter Rock’s My Abandonment . This was one of those titles recommended by GQ that I mentioned a few weeks back. (Yes, advertising works.) I suspect the word “haunting” in the description sold me, and I didn’t realize a young girl would guide me through the strange world that awaited. I won’t be giving any spoilers, but this was a girl’s coming of age story with no sex, no romance, and that inherently ambiguous relationship between a girl and her father. The writing is spare, and beautiful, like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road . How a middle-aged man captures the voice of a young girl is a source of wonder. The story is strange, yes, but naturalistic. Nothing in the sho...
Blog of a struggling writer.