Product Description

Lissy Jablonski was fifteen during the summer of 1985. That was the summer her father, a soft-spoken gynecologist, up and left her mother for a redheaded bank teller. The same summer Lissy and her mother disappeared from their quiet New Hampshire lives to have an adventure of their own amid a cast of unlikely characters, including a Valium-addicted ex-debutante and a suspected mobster. The summer the reliably comforting "girl talks" with her mother began to reveal startling secrets.

Now an almost-thirty-year-old advertising executive in Manhattan, faced with her father's imminent death and newly pregnant by her married ex-lover, an unmoored Lissy finds herself looking back across the years. Contending with her affections for an old flame and his doomed marriage to a Korean stripper named Kitty Hawk, as well as the tangible legacies of that unmentionable summer with her mother, she realizes that she has become more like her mother than she ever could have imagined.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1261849 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-02
• Released on: 2002-01-02
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .63" h x 5.30" w x 8.30" l, .59 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Poet and short story writer Baggott's debut novel is a touching coming-of-age story that delivers more depth than its title might imply. A baby boomer doctor's wife in New Hampshire takes her 15-year-old daughter on a voyage of discovery, then later denies the secrets revealed by calling it "the summer that never happened." Although accustomed to being roused from sleep for her mother's late night "girl talks," Lissy Jablonski is unprepared for what her mother, Dotty, has in mind one summer night in 1985. Lissy's gynecologist father has run off with a young bank teller. When it becomes evident that her husband is not going to return, Dotty counsels Lissy, "Don't cry... he's not your real father," and Lissy begins to discover her mother's tangled past. The two embark on a road trip to Dotty's hometown of Bayonne, N.J., where Lissy learns about her one-eyed, mythically endowed biological father, Anthony Pantuliano; the grandmother she thought was dead; and the choices her mother made that shaped both their lives. On the way to Bayonne, Lissy loses her virginity to Church Fiske, the son of her mother's best friend, wealthy ex-debutante Juniper Fiske. Looking back in 1999 as a 30-year-old, newly pregnant but unmarried advertising exec, Lissy realizes that she is repeating the patterns of her mother's life, as Church asks the same question of Lissy that Anthony asked of Dotty. Baggott's multilayered, psychological tale is told with a deceptively light tone, in scenes shifting from past to present. (Feb. 13) Forecast: Gen-X women and their mothers should find this novel absorbing, despite the occasionally awkwardness of the dual narrative. Appealingly quirky characters will charm readers who remember the '80s and could spark interest for informal book clubs. A 10-city nationwide author tour will help sales; foreign rights have been sold in six countries.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Baggott does well in setting the tone and atmosphere of coming-of-age in 1980s American society. Divorce, Pac-man, neon colors, and teased hair reign. Fifteen-year-old Lissy Jablonski spends the summer listening to her mother's stories of childhood and life before marriage as they both wait for Lissy's father to return home from his affair with a younger woman. As the 30-year-old Lissy looks back on that summer, she begins to piece together the power of mother-daughter relationships and discovers what she can offer her unborn child. Lissy finds herself making the same mistakes as her mother and knows that her daughter may follow in her footsteps. As much as this story is touching, Baggott's supporting characters succeed in making it funny and entertaining, as well. Michelle Kaske
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
Jill McCorkle author of Carolina Moon and Crash Diet Girl Talk is a wonderful story. I was hooked with the very first sentence and yet was never actually sure where the story would lead. What I was always certain of was that I was in capable hands. The subtle twists and turns are remarkable and the characters, especially the mother, are vivid and memorable. This is the work of a very talented writer. It was a pleasure to read.

Carol Dawson author of The Mother-in-Law Diaries I couldn't put this book down. Girl Talk's hilarious, relentless truths are well-served by its author's tough lyricism. Baggott trains a stern and tender eye onto our cultural markers, using them to signpost her lively trek toward the revelations of love -- lost, rediscovered, and most satisfying of all, unconditional.