The Revolution of Little Girls - Tapa dura

The Revolution of Little Girls pierces the heart of the American South and the Sixties - not to mention childhood, romance, sex and self-destruction - with wit and sympathy and insights that vibrate with originality. Ellen had a different course plotted for herself from the start. Playing at Tarzan and Jane as a child in Charleston, she always wanted to be Tarzan; her drink of choice at thirteen was Coke with ammonia spirits; and her attempt to travel the beaten path with her Harvard husband ends with a series of 'lesbian revolutionary' experiences, which in turn lead to spiritual wanderings among shamans and gurus. Ultimately she tips into an odd form of madness; she is bedeviled by imaginary little girls, fragments of her uncongealed childhood past. Just how they eventually leave her, and how she makes peace with her mother and herself, is the conclusion of this brutally honest, disturbing, and illuminating novel.

Blanche McCrary Boyd is the author of two earlier novels and a book of essays. She grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, and now lives in Connecticut, where she teaches writing at Connecticut College.