FROM THE AUTHOR
Thoughts about A Girl With A Bad Reputation…
A Girl with a Bad Reputation, my third novel, is a departure from my first two novels in that it features a single protagonist, young Colleen Hanrahan, and is told entirely from her point of view. The book dedication is “For a girl I once knew” and Colleen’s character is, in fact, based loosely on a girl I once knew when I was living in the Newburgh, NY, area and attending junior high and high school there. The fact that I wrote the story is testimony to the lasting impression people can make on us.
The idea to write the story came to me while I was finishing work on my second novel, Himba Pond Dance, and I decided to pursue writing it for a number of reasons: First, I thoroughly enjoy writing about young characters; second, the idea of writing about a young female character with a bad reputation appealed to me; and, third, I experienced the 1960s firsthand and the idea of using it as the backdrop for the story and really as a character in and of itself was exciting.
Using the names of the significant people in Colleen’s life for the chapter headings seemed like the right thing to do, given the nature of the story. I remember having a conversation with a close friend of mine, who’s an avid reader and good editor, about chapter headings when I was writing my first novel, Valley of Saint Anne. In the first draft, which I shared with her and she critiqued, the chapters were numbered and were accompanied by brief descriptive phrases, which is what prompted the conversation. She has an uneasy relationship with chapters, numbered or otherwise, and wondered if they’re even necessary in a novel. Beyond making it easier to know where you left off reading, I’m not sure.
Like my first two novels, A Girl With A Bad Reputation doesn’t fit neatly into any genre other than “Literary Fiction” or “General Fiction”; yet, like those stories, this story has a strong “Young-Adult” and “Women’s Lit” feel to it. While I wrote the novel to be read and enjoyed by everyone and have heard from both male and female readers about their experiences with it, based on what female readers have shared with me, I have to say that the story resonates most deeply with them and not surprisingly. They all, in their own way, identify closely with Colleen’s struggle with her father to establish her independence from him and with local society to maintain her dignity and self-esteem. The fact of the matter is that it isn’t easy being female in a patriarchal society, which ours still is.
Writing a novel is a magical experience for me, filled with surprises and the unexpected; just as the experience of reading a novel is for readers. There’s no way to predict what part of a story will affect readers most but based on what both male and female readers have shared with me, the interaction between Colleen and Jasmine stands out. In a way it’s not surprising because their contentious relationship encapsulates the struggle between blacks and whites in America at the time and that, sadly, continues to this day. Colleen and Jasmine find a way to make peace with each other. My hope is that the rest of our society does too.
