Growing Up Literary: Coming-of-Age Debuts

摘要

Coming-of-age stories are an indelible part of literature; from Huckleberry to Scout, the characters that fill their pages are iconic. Here are six debuts that explore, through a wide range of mode and method, the painful path to maturity. The claustrophobic setting of RELIEF MAP (Tin House. Mar. 2016. ISBN 9781941040225. pap. $15.95; ebk. ISBN 9781941040232) showcases Rosalie Knecht's ability to create a place and enfold readers within its borders. In a small Pennsylvania town, 16-year-old Livy spins through a remarkable summer-one in which her town is surrounded by maladroit cops and federal agents, while she and her best friend wade through creeks to outwit them. Then Livy encounters a suspected terrorist and, as the plot moves forward, the strengths and failings of her community. With a fluid style, Knecht crafts an elegiac story of realizations, both the slow simmering kind and those that erupt out of thick, dusty air.