The Girls Club

July 25, 2011
In her debut novel, Bellerose deftly tells the story of Cora Rose, Marie, and Renee LaBarre, a trio of working-class sisters in small-town Massachusetts who are best friends, mortal enemies, and forever loyal to each other. Told from youngest sister Cora Rose's perspective, the story begins in the late 1960s and wends through the 70s as the sisters each graduate from high school and come to terms with a number of difficult issuesâranging from teen pregnancy to parenting to health issues to coming to terms with their sexuality, all liberally seasoned with a healthy dose of Catholic guilt. Throughout, the sistersâas well as their boyfriends, husbands, and girlfriendsâmuddle through with hope and love. Bellerose's sympathetic characters are all the more appealing and realistic for their lack of perfection. No matter what one's view of sexuality, the portrayal of Cora Rose, a lesbian struggling to deny her realities to everyone including herself, is riveting and at times heartbreaking. A fast-paced, well-written tale with characters who will linger in the reader's memory long after the final page is turned.

September 1, 2011

In the decade between ninth grade and motherhood, Cora Rose LaBarre is destined to be caught between two groups of girls. The youngest of three sisters in a working-class Catholic family, she is both protected and driven to distraction by her older siblings and their gawky cousin, Lorraine. Despite their intensity and closeness, she is on her own in sorting out her sexual identity. Confused by her attraction to women, Cora is equally repelled by and attracted to The Girls Club, the local dyke bar. It's the 1960s, but their world is still conservative. Marie, the oldest and fiercest of Cora's siblings, may have ended up an unwed mother and high school dropout, but when Cora gets pregnant, she'll marry and try to make the best of it. Except that she keeps ending up at The Girls Club, praying she is different until she accepts that she is. The result is a tale that is at turns gritty and funny and always bittersweet. VERDICT Winner of the Bywater Prize for Fiction, this first novel provides an intense study of human frailty and hope; sure to appeal to readers who enjoy literate coming-of-age and coming-out fiction.--Jan Blodgett, Davidson, NC

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