No More Ugly Girls is a contemporary novel set in Janesville, Wisconsin.  I have family that lives there and as I drove through it, it spoke to me.

 At a spoken word night, I read part of the beginning chapter:

In her city everyone knew each other and fought or fucked each other. Guys hung out on the street corner and gunned their engines. In her city, your boyfriend’s first stop was to park around the corner from a house and then came back a few minutes later. When you were single, your friends pooled money together, and a man hanging out in the Burger King parking lot leaned into the car, and a transaction took place. Later on, someone you knew got into a fight with someone you hated in that same parking lot.

One of the attendees commented that this was accurate. I describe other parts of the city as more middle class.

Do I know Janesville? No. But I like to think I know Midwest small cities. I grew up on a farm, but I would go to a small city. I believe what I describe is what youth is like for many people. I think it’s important to show this.

My main character, Auburn, would say she had a wild, fun time. I think it is one of the lies she tells herself, but what she felt was desperation.

Was this my youth? No. (Except for the feeling of desperation). I was merely on the event horizon of this kind of life. Which is perhaps where a writer should be.

I didn’t do drugs. I didn’t get laid. I didn’t even play basketball. I had the support of two loving parents.

But I drove clapped out junk and peeled out. I was loud on the street corner and got drunk enough to end up in a few fights.

Auburn’s neighborhood is in every city. It’s actually my neighborhood. I feel safe, but there was a guy across the street that had the cops raid the house because of his wife returning stolen merchandise (the guy was 600 pounds and in a motorized wheelchair. The jail didn’t want him, but then he got arrested for sexual assault of a minor. Two blocks away was a police stand-off. Cars would park in front of our house and go around to the corner to buy drugs (so it didn’t look like a lot of traffic at that house).

This is part of Wisconsin, too.  It’s not all farms and hunting. Wisconsin is also a place of struggling and eventually making it to better times.