Girl Walking Backwards [Paperback]

Bett Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1998

Skye wants what all teenagers want--to survive high school. She lives in Southern California, though, which is making that difficult. Her mother has fallen victim to the pseudo-New Age culture and insists on dragging her to consciousness-raising workshops and hypnotists. As if this weren't difficult enough, Skye falls in love with Jessica, a troubled gothic punk girl who cuts herself regularly with sharp objects. When she finds her boyfriend having sex with Jessica in a bathroom stall at a rave, her romantic illusions collapse and she has to face the fact that she's been running away from her mother's insanity. Right when things look their worst though, Skye is helped by Mol, a pagan who becomes her true friend, and Lorri, a graceful volelyball player with whom she finds real love. From them she learns how to feel authentic emotions in a culture of poseurs and New Age charlatans. In this anti-coming-of-age novel, where growing up is irrelevant, this is the best gift of all.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Although the protagonist of Girl Walking Backwards is a young, more-or-less "out" lesbian, this not a lesbian novel so much as a classic, post-Catcher in the Rye roman à clef, closely observed and skillfully written. Skye has even fewer illusions than Holden Caulfield, but she manages to be cynical without being world-weary. She signs up for volleyball at her new high school only because the girls on the team are beautiful, then shrinks from making the first move toward them: "Making friends is such a formal thing," she reflects. "It would have been so convenient if we all drank. Puking is great bonding, holding your friend's head over the toilet seat is kind of an intimate act. Puking friends come and go, though, at least that was my experience in junior high." When she catches sight of the doomed, black-clad Jessica, Skye thinks she has found a soulmate, but Jessica turns out to be a murky reflection of Skye's mother--unhappy and unstable, feeling cheated by life. To what extent Skye will be pulled down into others' trouble is the issue beneath the more pressing questions of whom she will love, and who will love her. A first novel of unusual distinction. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

Williams confronts coming-of-age angst in this dry, often angry debut about a 16-year-old lesbian who lives in Santa Barbara, Calif., with her skittish mother, a spaced-out New Age divorcee on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Despite her parents' rocky breakup, Skye's world has managed to hang together, if precariously. She volunteers to work for Planned Parenthood because "it was the only organization that really dealt with teenagers' right to privacy." Soon she becomes infatuated with Jessica, a sullen, dark-haired girl she meets in a neighborhood cyber-cafe. The one thing Skye's mother is not receptive to is her daughter's lesbianism, and clashes are inevitable when Jessica introduces Skye to a world of raves, drugs and casual sexual encounters. When Jessica has a breakdown of her own, Skye realizes that avoiding reality has its price and begins to come to terms with the key actors in her life: her mother, who wants to "heal" her but ends up in the hospital herself; her well-intentioned but absent father, who is an independent filmmaker in L.A.; her "boyfriend" Riley; Jessica's friend Mol, an exuberant, self-titled Pagan; and Lorri, a volleyball teammate who turns out to be more than just another straitlaced jock. Williams writes in clipped, unemotional prose, underscoring the theme that innocence is hard to find but that naivete is rampant (especially among adults). Somehow in this chaotic and self-indulgent California terrain, her wounded young protagonist emerges as the most reasonable voice of all.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312194560
• ISBN-13: 978-0312194567
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #200,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Damn good book!, February 10, 2003

By 

GLBT (Illinois) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Girl Walking Backwards (Paperback)

The best writing seems like it was almost effortless... that's certainly the case here. The book reads so smoothly and so quickly, it feels as though it was written in one night.

Skye, a fifteen year-old girl who's dealing with a ton of stuff all at once, is a great character. She's tough enough to earn our admiration, but human enough to make you wince every time something bad happens to her. Through her, the book deals with issues of self-mutilation, discovering one's own sexuality, New Age cultism, drugs, friendship, sex, and all the usual highlights of being 15. This is no After School Special, though, and the book does not preach to the reader or try to force all-encompassing conclusions upon complex issues. The author is confident enough (and wise enough) to let the reader reach his/her own conclusions. She also avoids the "easy epiphany" pitfall. This book has no easy answers.

More than anything, though, this is a fun book. That's largely because Skye, though fallible, is such a likable character.

I would recommend this book especially for anyone in junior high school or high school, although it's perfectly suitable for adults as well. Writers like Judy Bloom, though wonderful in their own way, fail to address truly contemporary themes for teenagers. This book fills that void.

Final comment: I very much appreciated that the whole homosexual/heterosexual thing was addressed so realistically. There may be some people for whom it's a simple yes/no dichotomy, but most people I knew back in high school weren't nearly so one-way-or-the-other. It's nice to read a book about a lesbian who doesn't think of herself as "a lesbian" but rather as herself. She's Skye. Who she sleeps with (or wants to sleep with) is only one small part of who she is.

Really, really good stuff.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars STUNNING DEBUT, July 17, 2000

By 

A. Ross (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Girl Walking Backwards (Paperback)

Am I the only man who read this book?... This is pretty stunning stuff from a first-time novelist: beautiful but grounded prose, deep and believable characterizations, and a deft handling of complicated coming-of-age issues. On the other hand, first novels (and films) are often about those things closest to the author's heart and experience, so we'll wait to see what Williams comes up with next before proclaiming her the voice of a new generation... The book is about Skye, a high school senior in Santa Barbara trying to deal with a new school, making new friends, her insane New Age-addict mother, and her own sexuality. Williams juggles these along with the typical teenage traumas of parties, a controlling parent, an absent parent, and an out-of-control friend. It's a complex journey into Skye's head, and even though much of the book concerns her lesbianism, it never draws attention to itself. Williams' prose floats and flows but never lifts off into the realm of mawkishness. Deserves a wide readership.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining, but obviously by a very young writer, April 10, 1999

By 

Elizabeth Welch (Virginia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Girl Walking Backwards (Paperback)

I enjoyed this novel a great deal. It was entertaining and engrossing, sometimes erotic. As a teenager myself (16) I can relate less to the turbulant sex-and-drug-drenched world the author depicts, and more to her style of writing. Bett Williams is obviously an extremely talented writer (some selections of her prose are astoundingly poignant) but she also shares the self-absorbed dramatization of everything in her writing that is characteristic of youth. Each "gothic" character was depicted as achingly beautiful, each description of each outfit and eyeliner described as if it were art in it's highest form, each syllable uttered by each character took on almost too much meaning. While suitable for perhaps the description of Jessica because the main character is so obsessed with her, it becomes almost tiring to keep reading about these 'profoundly' beautiful people. And cynic that I am, I never imagine them in my head as quite as beautiful or romantic as Williams probably would like me to; instead I imagine that they like to think of themselves in such a way. The book gets better farther along, and I was surprised to find a great deal of depth in Skye by the end. (Who's very name smacks of a teenager's main character) However, with mention of Doc Martins and goths, it will not be long before this book will become extremely dated and almost cringely-embarrassing to read. (it's never fun to read how self-important we are in our youth) However, read it. It's enjoyable and entertaining, and although it doesn't reach the level of depth I think it strove for, I am positive that Bett Williams is capable of such a novel in the future.

-Liz