Abigail Dean’s debut novel Girl A quickly became one of the most hotly anticipated novels of 2021, even before its release in January of this year. In Girl A, Dean tells the twisting and chillingly disturbing story of Alexandra Grace grappling with the lingering effects of the torture and abuse she experienced at the hands of her parents. Pick up a copy of the novel here.
Over the past years, the obsession with true crime has become real and intense – something Rachel Monroe examines in her phenomenal book, Savage Appetites. This feeling is infused throughout Abigail Dean’s breakout hit novel, Girl A a novel that takes inspiration from the real ‘House of Horrors’ case – the Turpin family of Perris, California – and other immensely chilling real cases. The novel tells the story of Girl A or Alexandra Gracie who manages to escape from her parents’ House of Horrors to call the police and save her siblings. Years later, Lexie is assigned the role of executor of her mother’s estate, grappling with the decision of what to do with the site of her trauma and childhood abuse.
The novel is fractured between the present and past, with flashbacks of the gradual descent into abuse and Lexie’s current state – unpacking the trauma she underwent. It is an absorbing and compelling read, demonstrating the extent of the horror that Lexie and her siblings underwent – perhaps the bleakest part of the novel is where she unpacks the role of her own brother in the abuse that she faced. Despite outward appearances of normalcy in the present time, the scars both mental and physical are indelibly planted on all of the children who were subject to the House of Horrors. As a narrator, Lexie is complicated – it is hard to work out where her memories are faulty and where she is avoiding the memories of the extensive horror in order to save herself. It is a powerful and thought provoking novel, whose only downfall is in wanting more pages in order to fully flesh out the very real complexities of the relationships between the siblings that continue into the present day. Given that this is only her debut, Dean is one of the most interesting writers to emerge in recent years.
