Author Description

Sara, the teenaged femme fatale of The Torn Skirt, Rebecca Godfrey's stunning first novel, says she was born with a fever. "Highschool, I was a good girl. I was pretty, I smiled, I fit in fine. And then as I turned sixteen and stopped smiling, the fever returned, though my skin stayed pale and sure, showing no sign of the heat inside me." Awaiting arrest in her cluttered bedroom, Sara offers her own densely lyrical and tragically crooked version of the events that led her to a rain-smeared alley in downtown Victoria and a gruesome crime. A taut mystery embedded in a shocking coming-of-age story, The Torn Skirt combines the chilling naturalism of Mary Gaitskill with the stifling poetic intensity of Elizabeth Smart.Sara's forehead first begins to sweat when she hears that her boyfriend and his stoner friends have casually gang-raped a girl with a garden hose. But it's not until she spies the elusive street waif Justine--the girl in "the torn skirt"--that the rage and desire burning inside her reach a fever pitch. Trading in her suburban long johns for a white fur coat and a stolen nurse's uniform, Sara pursues this fragile yet dangerous heroine through the underworld of strait-laced Victoria. An extraordinary debut, The Torn Skirt captures the danger and beauty of life on the streets with images that scorch holes in the mind long after its surprising and evocative conclusion. --Lisa Alward