First published 2016
Wendy Lawless flees the wreckage of her unstable childhood and volatile mother, landing in the raw creative scene of 1980s downtown Manhattan. Before gentrification transforms the neighborhood into boutiques and trendy restaurants, she navigates a world of punk rockers, struggling actors, and pulsing parties with nothing but an open heart and thrift store clothes. She makes every mistake youth offers, searches for love in the wrong places, and confronts unexpected encounters with her own past. The gritty art scene pulses around her as she tries to build a life from scratch. Wendy must learn to grow up alone while hunting for love, steady work, and sometimes just a free meal in the dangerous but exciting creative underbelly of the city.
Genres: american-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, adult-fiction, biographical-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, gritty, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Manhattan, New York
Period: 1980s
384 pages · Paperback · Gallery Books
Content warnings: abuse, mental-illness