Kate Zambreno (O Fallen Angel) imagines the way immaturity peels away with experience when she introduces Ruth, an American ingénue in London. She is "cast in the likeness of her creator," calling into question the novel's true protagonist. Described as some half-formed blur, Ruth is a shop girl trying to make sense of the duplicitous world around her. But even Ruth is not her own ally and must learn to negotiate her desires, appetites and will.
Green Girl is an ambulatory coming-of-age novel: Inexperienced Ruth, green and fumbling, wanders London in search of belonging, relationships or satisfaction while Zambreno burdens her with myriad foils. Epigraphs instead of chapter breaks help parse the threads of Ruth's story. Just as aptly, Ruth learns to perform adulthood by emulating someone new on every page: Jean Seberg, then Millais's Ophelia; Katharine Hepburn, then Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velvet. With every pose, Ruth strives to steady herself as her emotions shift, her friends' loyalty wavers, her job fails to keep her interest, her boyfriend Rhys cleaves, her existence whirls around her.
A deeply character-driven book, Green Girl allows its narrator to insert herself with pity, scorn or deliberate self-recognition, as though a god watching her creation crawl fitfully through the city streets. It's this beautiful erosion of perspective and identity that truly illuminates the empathetic specimen of humanity at stake: Ruth, green girl extraordinaire, becomes the narrator, becomes Zambreno, maybe even becomes the reader, as if threatening to swallow the world with her reckless naïveté. --Dave Wheeler, publishing assistant, Shelf Awareness