{"id":319,"date":"2013-03-12T18:51:42","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T08:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=319"},"modified":"2013-03-15T14:11:51","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T04:11:51","slug":"girl-defective-at-long-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/?p=319","title":{"rendered":"GIRL DEFECTIVE, AT LONG LAST"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve just read Simmone Howell’s new Young Adult novel Girl Defective<\/em>. It was an odd experience – kinda new, kinda not – because I was already acquainted with Sky and Gully and Bill in their flat above the record shop in Blessington Street, St Kilda. I knew about heart-breaker Nancy and the brickers and Eve the lady cop and the elusive track “Wishing Well” that gave the shop its name. I’d heard about all of them before; I’d heard Sky’s unforgettable voice and cracked up at her hard-boiled bon mots. And here at last was the whole story.<\/p>\n

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It seems like a long time ago, but it’s probably only a couple of years since Julie Gittus and Lee Fox, along with Simmone and I, made up a little writer’s workshop quartet. We met regularly – usually once a month – in each other’s kitchens, and read from our respective works in progress. So I’d heard quite a bit of the book, and we’d all talked writerly talk about the plot and the characters.<\/p>\n

What can I say, apart from I loved it then, in bits and pieces and unfinished, and I love it now? I love the strong and warm sense of family, even though the family – living-in-the-past, semi-alcoholic Bill and snout-mask wearing Gully – are, as heroine Sky says, “like inverse superheroes, marked by our defects.” \u00a0I love the way Sky, a would-be-worldly innocent, fumbles her way through the darkness of adolescent confusion into some kind of light – with a little help from her friends. And the way the story of lost girl Mia weaves sad tendrils right through.<\/p>\n

And that that old dame (or is she a broad?) St Kilda is a character in her own right.\u00a0\u00a0The book is noir-ish, funny, moving, happy and sad and wise, with a mystery solved, a little romance and lots of old vinyl.<\/p>\n

And I can’t not mention Sky’s fabulous voice. Boy, does that girl have a smart mouth! How’s this, just in the first few pages?<\/p>\n

I’d known Nancy three months. She was nineteen and sharp as knives. I was fifteen and fumbling. We met when Dad hired her to clean the shop and the flat. I remember her walking into the room with the vacuum hose hung around her neck, sloppy and insolent like a bad boyfriend’s arm.<\/em><\/p>\n

And at the end of that paragraph:<\/p>\n

Kid, that was what she called me. Or little sister, or girlfriend, or doll baby, or monkey face. Sometimes she even used my name – Skylark, Sky – all in that drawl that felt like fingernails on my back lightly scratching itches I didn’t even know I had.<\/em><\/p>\n

Reading the whole story for the first time, Girl Defective\u00a0<\/em>seemed inevitable and surprising at the same time, like an old acquaintance who becomes a new friend. At long last.<\/p>\n

Simmone’s website and blog are at http:\/\/simmonehowell.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve just read Simmone Howell’s new Young Adult novel Girl Defective. It was an odd experience – kinda new, kinda not – because I was already acquainted with Sky and Gully and Bill in their flat above the record shop … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veritysparks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}