Authors: Alison Umminger
American Girls (29 page)
As I finished writing, I thought about
Valley of the Dolls
and the long line of beautiful women, from Daisy to Sharon Tate to Olivia Taylor to my sister, who made books and films and music come to life. In the middle of
Kandy Kisses,
Olivia Taylor smiles at the camera and says, “If I could blow the whole world a kiss, I would.” Then I almost started cracking up, because I remembered the afternoon when Josh was making fun of his sister, and he puckered up and said, “If I could blow the whole world, I would,” and he and Jeremy almost laughed themselves off their chairs. I knew Daisy was just imaginary, but I also wondered if the real girls, or women, or whatever, weren't sometimes just as make-believe themselves. I thought about the wall of women's faces in Roger's movie, the new girls and the old. By the time the flight attendants turned the lights back on, I had a draft of something.
My mom was supposed to be meeting me with Lynette, and I wondered if she would still look like herself when she picked me up from the airport, if she'd let Birch stay up past bedtime to meet me as well, if she'd come at all. Lynette had promised that they would both make it, even though my mom was still more tired than usual from the chemo.
A calming voice announced: “Please fasten your seat belts and prepare for landing. All electronics should be turned off and properly stowed.”
I closed my eyes and for just a minute I felt how much I'd missed my mom, and I wondered if she missed me as well. It almost didn't matter that within ten seconds of seeing her she would probably be driving me insane, or that for all I knew she wouldn't be there at all, she'd just be the lame sound of parroted excuses escaping from Lynette's mouth. But even that didn't matter. In the moment, with my phone off and the landing strip ballooning in the window, anything was possible. I might turn on the phone and Jeremy would have called, begging me to go back to California. Or Doon would have texted to say that she hadn't meant anything she'd said, that there was no need to apologize, that we would be best friends forever. I could imagine my mom healthy and Lynette and Birch standing next to her, and my dad back from Mexico, all waiting for me at the gate with one of those cheesy signs and flowers:
Anna, we
'
ve missed you. Welcome home!
My mom asked me about a million times over the summer why I ran away. If it was because LA was so fabulous, or I liked my sister better than her, or if I was dealing drugs or whatever weird conspiracy she'd read about on the Internet that week. But the truth of it was, I didn't really have a plan past getting on the plane. Even when my sister showed up, which seemed like the thing that had to happen, that should happen, part of me was still kind of surprised. I guess, at the end of the day, what I wanted most was to feel that moment when you're on a plane and everyone around you is in their own world, anxious to stand up and open the overhead bin and get ready to start the life they've only ever dreamed of, or reenter whatever life they left behind: that moment before the plane hits the ground, when the air starts to hum and it seems like if the impact doesn't kill you, the possibilities are almost too much to bear.
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Why the Manson Girls?
I never set out to write a book about the Manson girls. In fact, I'd been at work on this novel for some time before the book told me that it wanted to be about the Manson familyâand my first thought was that it couldn't. The material was sensationalistic and a little clichéd, and who wanted to give another American psycho more attention anyhow?
Before I wrote this novel, my first thought about the Manson girls, like that of many people, was “Yuck, the Manson girls? They're still in jail, right?” I wanted to write a book about Los Angeles, girlhood, and what the American dream might mean to a kind of lost, basically decent, deeply cynical fifteen-year-old girl. I definitely didn't want the book to be about Charles Mansonâand I don't think it is.
To be honest, I didn't even enjoy researching the Manson girls all that much. I kept looking for the key, the really horrific thing that must have happened in their lives that turned them into killers, a poorly wired circuitry that might excuse such colossally shorted-out humanity.
What I found was that most of them had screwed-up lives but low-level screwed upâtheir biographies suggested they could have gone on to become perfectly functional adults had they encountered a different group of friends (and had they had a few years of good therapy).
The Manson girls were lost girls who made bad choices.
Really
bad choices. And in some cases, most cases actually, wound up being really, really sorry about those choices.
What does one do with that?
Rather than mirroring the Manson family, I decided to write a novel that put the focus on emotional violenceâthe kind that doesn't leave the obvious scars. I wanted Anna's “crime,” as it were, to be invisible but damaging. I wanted her to be forgivable.
Anna is a “regular” girl who finds her way home. I think that the Manson family continues to fascinate becauseâas hard as it is to imagineâthe Manson girls were once “regular” girls as well.
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I suppose there are books still written by the artist, toiling alone, wrestling with her geniusâbut this was not one of them! This book was written catch-as-catch-can, during toddler naps, in the waiting room of auto shops while the oil got changed, fifteen minutes at a time before I started the official day, and on occasion in large chunks, thanks to the generosity of Bruce and Judy Umminger, Mike Mattison, and the most caring Pam Murphy and Julie Reed.
One of the great advantages of being a late bloomer (that is to say, someone whose “first novel” is published after one has been writing for years) is that along the way I have collected some truly wonderful writer friends and brilliant readers, whose insights were instrumental in drafting, redrafting, and finally finishing this book. Thanks first and foremost to Margaret Mitchell, a friend and fellow writer extraordinaire, who read more versions of this than I could count. Thanks especially to Bob Bledsoe, Romayne Dorsey, Dana Johnson, Michelle Ross, Meg Pearson, Mike Mattison (again), Bruce Umminger (again), Jim Elledge, Dionne Bremyer, Sean Jepson, Christine Sneed, David Groff, Sarah Dotts Barley, Yael Sherman, and Neeti Madan for reading drafts, offering insight, and being most excellent cheerleaders. And speaking of cheerleadersâthank you, Kate Gace Walton, for your wonderful Web site, Work Stew, which inspired me to get back on the horse as a novelist after putting that dream aside. Thanks to Greg Frasier for helping me place an early section of this novel. Thanks to Bernadette Murphy, Alexandra Cordero, Linda Rattner Metcalf, McCalla Hill-McKaharay, Amy McIlwain, Lisa Connell and Jason Keesling, Elaine McSorley-Gerard, Dave Mandel, Aelred Dean, Jan Tolbert, and Katherine Hamburger-Schneider and April Umminger for always lending an ear and encouragement when I needed it most. GURU mamas, you know who you are, and thanks for your support and insights. Thanks also to Josh Black and Thomas Jones for their early help with research and to Jill Sutton for photos. And to Philip Pascuzzo for the amazing cover design.
Extra-special thanks to Neeti Madan for being the best agent everâfabulous friend, wonderful reader, tireless advocate. I cannot say what a pleasure it was to work with Sarah Dotts Barley, the brilliant, lovely editor who helped make this book strong in ways that I couldn't have predicted. Thank you. Thanks to the others who have made this experience of bringing a book into the world a dream come trueâAmy Einhorn, Sarah Castleton, Madeleine Clark, Marlena Bittner, Sheryl Johnston, Liz Keenan, Molly Fonseca, Karen Horton, and Szilvia Molnar. I couldn't be more excited to be on the Flatiron list. Thanks to Caroline Abbey and Donna Bray as well.
Thanks also to my big extended familyâJudie Mattison, John and Lynne Mattison, Miles and Judy Renaas, and Katrina, Will, and Geneva Rutherford, and more Ummingers, Aherons, and Bryants than I can listâyou've all been so encouraging and interested. This is a bookâultimatelyâabout family, and I am blessed to have lived long enough to be able to see and truly appreciate how much love I have in my life. I couldn't list everyone who's offered an encouraging word along the way, but every bit of kindness mattered. (Do I sound like Jewel? Help!)
And finally, thank you, Mike and Maggie. You are my great loves and make it all worthwhile.
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Recommend
American Girls
for your next book club!
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Reading Group Guide available at
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Alison Umminger
grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and as an undergraduate was the fourth woman to be elected president of
The Harvard Lampoon
. Today she is a professor of English at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, Georgia, where she lives with her family.
American Girls
is her first novel. You can sign up for email updates
here
.
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Contents
Reading Group Guide Information
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
AMERICAN GIRLS.
Copyright © 2016 by Alison Umminger. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Portions of this book originally appeared in a slightly different form under the title “Anna Has Two Mommies” in
Waccamaw
.
Cover design by Philip Pascuzzo
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for the print edition is available upon request.
ISBN
978-1-250-07500-0 (hardcover)
ISBN
978-1-250-07502-4
(e-book)
e-ISBN 9781250075024
Our books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at
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.
First Edition: June 2016
