Scrappy ‘Girlchild’ Forms A Girl Scout Troop Of One

You’d think that by now, the news that Americans are spoiling their children would be as attention-getting as the fabled headline “Dog Bites Man,” but, apparently, we never weary of hearing about how badly we’re doing as parents. Last year, it was the Tiger Mom; this year, a hot new book called Bringing Up Bebe tells us that the French have us beat by an indifferent shrug when it comes to the art of raising independent kids. (I think red wine has something to do with it.) And, in business news of late, reports have sprung up about helicopter parents staging landings in their adult children’s workplaces — even accompanying Junior and Missy on job interviews! — just to make sure the boss realizes what treasures are gracing the intern pool.

We lap up these mock horror tales of overinvolved parents because even though they may be critical, they’re essentially comic: They’re about parents who “love too much.” But, of course, for every kid who’s ever been smothered by parental concern, there have always been plenty in America and elsewhere who have been left to fend for themselves. One cold consolation these kids have is that their stories usually make for better literature.

Tupelo Hassman writes with such an eye for rough-and-tough detail, she obviously knows something about kids who have been given the dubious gift of premature autonomy. The narrator of her curious debut novel, Girlchild, is a trailer trash tyke named Rory Dawn Hendrix. Rory tells us her alcoholic mom, whom she idolizes, had four children by the time she was 19; Rory is her fifth. The pair live outside Reno, Nev., in a trailer paid for by Mom’s jobs as a bartender, keno runner, and change girl at the casinos. Rory is left home alone a lot and, when she’s not watching reruns of M*A*S*H or Family Ties or hiding from the boogeymen, real or imagined, banging on the trailer door, she’s reading.