Good Girl (Gallery Books) Told with raw, rugged honesty, this heartrending memoir from journalist Sarah Tomlinson recounts her unconventional upbringing and coming-of-age as colored by her complicated relationship with her father.
Good Girl (Gallery Books)
Told with raw, rugged honesty, this heartrending memoir from journalist Sarah Tomlinson recounts her unconventional upbringing and coming-of-age as colored by her complicated relationship with her father.
Sarah Tomlinson was born on January 29, 1976, in a farmhouse in Freedom, Maine. After two years of attempted family life in Boston, her father's gambling addiction and broken promises led her mother to pool her resources with five other families to buy 100 acres of land in Maine and reunite with her college boyfriend. Sarah would spend the majority of her childhood on "The Land" with infrequent, but coveted, visits from her father, who--as a hitchhiking, acid-dropping, wannabe mystic turned taxi driver--was nothing short of a rock star in her eyes.
Propelled out of her bohemian upbringing to seek the big life she equated with her father, Sarah entered college at fifteen, where a school shooting further complicated her quest for a sense of safety. While establishing herself as a journalist and rock critic on both coasts, Sarah's father continued to swerve in and out of her life, building and re-breaking their relationship, and fracturing Sarah's confidence and sense of self. In this unforgettable memoir, Sarah conveys the dark comedy in her quest to repair the heart her father broke.
Bittersweet, honest, and ultimately redemptive, Good Girl takes an insightful look into what happens when the people we love unconditionally are the people who disappoint us the most, and how time, introspection, and acceptance can help us heal.""
Praise for Good Girl:
“A compelling, insight-laden memoir documenting the devastating impact of a father’s undependable love on a daughter. Tomlinson’s lucid depiction of her DIY backwoods girlhood and punk teen years, precocious entry to college, tempestuous love life and literary ambitions, her excesses and failures and successes—portrays a young woman whose emotional life is a shimmering, shifting sea whose currents are shaped by a geologic formation a the bottom, the charming bohemian fantastist that was her father.”–Janet Fitch, New York Times bestselling author of White Oleander
“Tomlinson is a clear-eyed, compassionate writer, and she brings an emotional rigor to this book that is rare and beautiful.” –Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of California
“Good Girl is a father-daughter story unlike any other I’ve read before. Tomlinson’s prose is vivid and compelling, bringing you right along with her as she travels from her rural hometown to the big city in search of fulfillment, clarity, and—hopefully—a sense of peace in her relationship with the man who made her who she is.”–Jill Soloway, creator of the 2015 Golden Globe-winning television show “Transparent” and author of Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants
“Shot from the heart, Tomlinson's memoir of her dance around her enigmatic and elusive father resonated deeply with me, as it will with anyone who has yearned for a parent's love and their own place in the world.”–Wendy Lawless, New York Times bestselling author of Chanel Bonfire
“Sarah Tomlinson's Good Girl courageously explores the central journey of every woman's life: from wanting the love of Daddy -- and the men who stand in for him -- to learning how to love herself.”–Tracy McMillan, television writer and author of the soon to be released Multiple Listings; I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway, and Why You're Not Married...Yet
“With great poignance and vulnerability, Tomlinson turns a frank, funny, and honest gaze on one girl’s struggle to redefine ‘good’ on her own terms.”–Jillian Lauren, New York Times bestselling author of Some Girls: My Life in a Harem
Sarah Tomlinson has more than a decade of experience as a journalist, music critic, writer, and editor. She has ghostwritten ten books (with two more in the works), including two uncredited New York Times-bestsellers.
She has turned her passion for music, literature, and pop culture trends into cutting-edge coverage and cultural criticism. Her personal essays have appeared, or are forthcoming, in publications including Marie Claire, MORE, Salon.com, The Huffington Post and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Her fiction has appeared on Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Her articles and music reviews have appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Boston magazine, Spin.com,Billboard.com, Alternative Press, Swindle, Preen, Rockpile, The OC Weekly, and The Willamette Week, and she wrote a weekly local music column, “Notes,” for The Boston Phoenix. She has written bios for bands on Virgin, Red Ink/Columbia, and MySpace Records and contributed to the electronic press kits for artists on Warner Bros. Records.
Sarah currently splits her time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn. She writes journalism, novels, memoirs, screenplays, TV pilots, personal essays, short stories and online dating profiles for her friends. She has read at Los Angeles literary happenings including Sit ‘n Spin, Vermin on the Mount, Tongue and Groove and Little Birds. Her favorite band is T. Rex.
