Tomato Girl [Hardcover]

Jayne Pupek (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2008

For eleven-year-old Ellie Sanders, her father has always been the rock that she could cling to when her mother's emotional troubles became too frightening. But when he comes under the thrall of the pretty teenager who raises vegetables and tomatoes for sale at the general store that he runs, Ellie sees her security slowly slipping away. Now she must be witness and warden to her mother's gradual slide into madness.

Told from Ellie's point of view, Tomato Girl takes the reader into the soul of a terrified young girl clinging desperately to childhood while being forced into adulthood years before she is ready. To save herself, she creates a secret world, a place in which her mother gets well, her father returns to being the man he was, and the Tomato Girl is banished forever. Tomato Girl marks the debut of a gifted and promising new author who has written a timeless Southern novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The absorbing, unsettling debut from Pupek centers on 11-year-old Ellie Sanders, who has already seen a lot of heartache in her short, rural mid-20th-century Virginia childhood. Her beautiful but troubled mother, Julia, who today would probably be diagnosed as bipolar, has frequent outbursts necessitating restraints and horse tranquilizers, administered by Ellie's father, Rupert. When a pregnant Julia suffers a bad fall, Rupert uses the incident to bring home more trouble, in the form of Tess, the teenage tomato girl who supplies his general store with home-grown produce. Intended as a caretaker for Julia and Ellie (and a bedmate for himself), Tess, who has troubles of her own, instead initiates a series of increasingly horrific events that leaves the family irreversibly altered. Issues of racial and religious intolerance are touched on lightly, but the real focus of this accomplished debut is the fatalistic accounting of the events engulfing Ellie. Although Ellie's voice is not always consistent with her youth, she's an effective narrator whose storytelling naïveté nicely underscores her innocence. (Aug.)
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About the Author

Jayne Pupek, who lives near Richmond, is a Virginia native and a former social worker. Though Tomato Girl is her first novel, her writing has appeared in many literary journals. She is the author of a book of poetry titled Forms of Intercession.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 298 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books (August 26, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565124723
• ISBN-13: 978-1565124721
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,041,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Best Book of 2008 Thus Far, September 20, 2008

By 

Bibliophile By the Sea (US) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tomato Girl (Hardcover)

I have been avoiding writing a review about the book Tomato Girl, by Jayne Pupek, because that would mean it was time for me to move on to something else. I did not want to move on. I love loved loved this book! I read it once (in one day), but then the following day I went back and placed sticky notes on at least 10 pages, so that I could reread some of the haunting passages again, and keep them for the future.

Tomato Girl is about Ellie Sanders, an 11-year old girl growing up in a dysfunctional family. It is not an easy read, but I found myself anxiously waiting to turn each page. It is a heartbreaking account of mental illness and how it can tear apart a family. The prologue is only one page, and yet it made my jaw drop open.

FROM THE PROLOGUE.............Jars line my cellar shelves. Some are filled with fists of yellow-veined tomatoes. Others hold small onions and chopped leeks, white pearl onions floating in an opaque sea. Sometimes the light falls on a jar of boiled quail or the slick dark meat of a rabbit. There are unexpected moments when I see the slit of an infant's mouth, or the curl of a tiny fist behind the glass, and I run up the steps, back into the open light of sky...........I need to tell what I remember, I need to tell the story of a girl whose world unraveled like a torn scarf.............

What I loved best about this book (well there are so many things to love), but especially that the story is told through 11-year old Ellie's eyes, and how she views the world she lives in. There are loads of clues the reader will pick up on, but naive Ellie does not (at least not initially). Ellie is so genuine; you just want to sweep her away ......off to a normal childhood as she is faced with far too many difficult adult issues. The novel takes place in 1969 in a fictional town in Virginia, so there is a whole racial element to the story as well.

I thought it was brilliant how the heart of the story takes place during Easter week. There is a part when Ellie thinks about her "God Promises"....so touching. There are so many beautiful passages and analogies in this book. I do not want to quote any more as I don't want to spoil it for others.


I have read over 100 books in 2008 and this is my favorite so far. It is an amazing debut novel. I look forward to more books by this talented author. PLEASE read this book; it is one book that will resonate long after the final page has been turned.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kudos all around, August 19, 2008

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tomato Girl (Hardcover)

Oh boy! Another winner from Algonquin Press. Tomato Girl keeps readers turning pages till way too late into the night. From the outset, you just know all of eleven-year-old Ellie's hard work to heal her mother, reform her father, and banish the tempting teen-aged Tomato Girl, are unrealistic and doomed. It's all too much for the eleven-year-old child, the only person in her family who seems to have her head on straight, to manage on her own - and fears of the obvious consequences prevent her from seeking outside help. Against insane odds, Ellie valiantly struggles onward, carrying mesmerized readers along with her.

Writing an entire novel in the voice of a child is difficult, but for the most part first-time author Jayne Pupek manages to maintain the tone, awareness, and vocabulary of a pubescent child of the South in a manner that is consistent and authentic.

Kudos to both Pupek and her publisher for bringing Tomato Girl to fruition.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A captivating novel, August 15, 2008

By 

Kirsten (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tomato Girl (Hardcover)

Jayne Pupek can write! Tomato Girl is a beautiful novel related by an eleven-year old narrator, Ellie, whom I loved from the moment she admitted "I can't tell them about Mama's moods, or how she keeps Baby Tom in a jar." I was captivated by her story, and so curious to learn it that I had trouble setting the novel down.

Though young, Ellie is a perceptive narrator, and I enjoyed meeting the adults in the book through her eyes. I saw how and why she adored her father, though his actions were irresponsible, sometimes cruel, and sometimes criminal. Her mother suffers from madness, and as I watched her condition deteriorate through her daughter's eyes, I felt my concern intensify into something approaching terror. Ellie is a child forced to shoulder burdens that even an adult--and especially the adults in the story--have trouble carrying. I couldn't help but feel compassion for her. I wanted things to work out for her; I was completely sucked into her world.

The story is very dark at times, but the book remains hopeful, often because Ellie brings a light to the events through her unwavering love for her family and her childish innocence. The characters are complex, the setting well described, the voice one you will not likely forget. Tomato Girl is a wonderful debut novel by a writer who knows her craft. I'm already looking forward to Pupek's next book.