Cures for Heartbreak
I just finished reading Margo Rabb’s novel Cures for Heartbreak. It is a novel about a girl named Mia whose mother dies of cancer when she is a fourteen. There are many things I love about this book. I love its sense of humor. I love that it is unapologetically a novel about a girl. I attended a reading of Margo’s recently and asked her about whether she wrote the book for an adult or a young adult audience. She said she wrote it for adults and when it sold as a young adult novel, she was surprised. I enjoyed it as much--if not more--than many other “adult” books. It has gotten me thinking about what makes a young adult versus and adult book.
Some of Alice Munro’s best short stories are about childhood. Why do we think that childhood or adolescence is not of interest to adults—or only if it is filtered through an adult frame or tone?
As some of you know, I am working on a novel. It is also about a girl—and as one friend who has read parts of it said, “girlhood.” A little while ago, I showed it to some agents, a number whom raised the adult versus the young adult question.
It seems to be, to a certain extent, a question of tone. A young adult editor I asked to take a look said she thought it was definitely adult. The theme and the prose level make it so. I have decided the same thing and am writing forward, thinking of it as an “adult” book.
Yet it is still a book about a girl—and about girlhood.
So, my question is: Must a book about girlhood necessarily marketed as young adult? After all, writing is about exploring human experience—all of it. The terms “childhood” and “adolescence” make us perceive those states as something other than adulthood but I wonder. I think it is more fluid than that. As Faulkner famously said, "The past is not dead. It is not even past.”
Some of Alice Munro’s best short stories are about childhood. Why do we think that childhood or adolescence is not of interest to adults—or only if it is filtered through an adult frame or tone?
As some of you know, I am working on a novel. It is also about a girl—and as one friend who has read parts of it said, “girlhood.” A little while ago, I showed it to some agents, a number whom raised the adult versus the young adult question.
It seems to be, to a certain extent, a question of tone. A young adult editor I asked to take a look said she thought it was definitely adult. The theme and the prose level make it so. I have decided the same thing and am writing forward, thinking of it as an “adult” book.
Yet it is still a book about a girl—and about girlhood.
So, my question is: Must a book about girlhood necessarily marketed as young adult? After all, writing is about exploring human experience—all of it. The terms “childhood” and “adolescence” make us perceive those states as something other than adulthood but I wonder. I think it is more fluid than that. As Faulkner famously said, "The past is not dead. It is not even past.”
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