After a string of many unbirthdays I am finally having my birthday, a double-digit extravaganza which I am so far marking with house cleaning, phone interviews and pancakes at a local diner with Maud.
Really, the finest present I have received so far is yesterday’s news that Savage Girl has been accepted for publication by Viking.
Savage Girl begins in 1875 in Virginia City, Nevada, at the height of the silver boom. A teenaged girl is being exhibited as a sideshow attraction — promoters advertise her as a wild child raised by wolves. An extremely wealthy couple comes from New York City to inspect their mines; they adopt the girl and bring her back to Manhattan with the idea of raising her up as a debutante. Murder and mayhem follow.
The novel is narrated by Hugo Delegate, a sensitive, brooding 22-year-old anatomy student and son of the wealthy mine owners, who gets drawn into the hectic events surrounding the savage girl’s immersion in New York’s Gilded Age.
Everyone involved is so excited to see the public birth of Hugo and Savage Girls’ story.
Happy birthday.
Jean Zimmerman 