The Worst Kind of Girl
She's almost here.
Welcome, thanks for reading.
My new novel, The Worst Kind of Girl, is due this June from Braddock Avenue Books. From Substack, I will send brief, occasional notes about how the book came to be and the conversations it hopes to open. I’ll post the cover — coming soon! — plus details about readings and events, in person and online. (I have yet to start planning, so if you have ideas to propose, please get in touch.)
The Worst Kind of Girl is the queer, feminist story of a woman who finds love and comes out, at 50, while reckoning with her “life of men,” bodies, and bigness – all the ways women are “too” big. This book reflects an evolution in my writing and myself. In the 9 years (!) since my debut novel was published, I’ve gained confidence and lost most of my fucks.
With this book, I trusted my instincts and everything I’d learned about writing, over the decades. I broke some rules, which seemed necessary for a book like this. It was fueled by everything I’d witnessed and experienced since Trump; since publishing the Feckless Cunt Anthology; since hosting the Desert Split Open; since growing up a girl and existing half a century in this cis, white, heteropatriarchy.
I had fun with The Worst Kind of Girl. Like my protagonist, Paula Winger, I happen to be tall and originally from Connecticut, a would-be writer with curly grey hair and a penchant for cannabis, with a life of men – and now women. Like her, I moved alone to California’s hi-desert, where this book is set. Paula runs an old motel in Yucca Valley and owns land in Joshua Tree. This book allowed me to set up this character with some of my own questions, then launch her into her own fictional story, complete with dead bodies, missing bodies, and a depressed, adult niece who might yet be saved. Did I mention Paula’s love interest, Sky, the hot lesbian baker and dancer opening a queer roller disco in Joshua Tree? This is a fun book, funny in places, and all too tender in others.
I hope you love it.
-Susan
P.S. The Worst Kind of Girl got herself some attention before finding acceptance at BAB:
• Shortlist, Santa Fe Writer’s Project 2022 Literary Awards
• Finalist, Black Lawrence Press 2022 Big Moose Prize
• Longlist, Dzanc Books 2022 Prize for Fiction
• Chapter 1 published at Meet Me @ 19th Street, journal of Arch Street Press
• Short essay on writing the book during Covid lockdowns, Twisted Road Publications
