Seasoned novelist T. Greenwood's psychologically complex and lyrically written Such a Pretty Girl offers a glimpse into the controversial rise to fame of a child star in 1970s New York. Ryan Flannigan has built a bucolic life with her daughter in Vermont, outside the media's eye. But when a suggestive photo of her as a child is found in the possession of a pedophilic billionaire, Ryan must reevaluate the life she left behind in Manhattan's West Village and her determined, spotlight-obsessed mother, Fiona, who directed her career. As Ryan reconnects with old friends and revisits hauntingly familiar places, she is forced to remember the summer of 1977 and what happened the night of the fateful New York City blackout.
Carefully crafted around intersecting present and past plotlines, Such a Pretty Girl balances on the edge of womanhood and girlhood, revealing the strength and vulnerability of those always under the lingering gaze of men. Greenwood (Keeping Lucy; The Forever Bridge) does an expert job of constructing Fiona as a complex character who engages in toxic behavior but embodies just enough charm to draw in her daughter and readers alike. Meanwhile, Ryan's perspectives reveal the heartbreaking tenacity of a girl who longs for her mother. Perhaps most engaging, however, is Greenwood's atmospheric, lived-in portrait of 1970s New York. From the grease- and sand-encrusted restaurants of Coney Island to the sun-spotted, well-worn facades of the West Village, this snapshot is equal parts alluring and disturbing, nostalgic and insightful. --Alice Martin, freelance writer and editor