GODS WITH A LITTLE G — tupelo hassman

"Tupelo Hassman’s writing makes me blather and drool. Hilarious and wise, smart and angry, tart and devastating, GODS WITH A LITTLE G is a dark charm, full of dangerous magic. No other writer can limn the boundaries of female becoming like Hassman. Like a prism, this book possesses all the colors."

—Heidi Julavits, The Folded Clock and The Vanishers

"Tupelo Hassman has written a sacrament for girls growing up as we did, a liturgy for their irreverent hilarious resilient souls, a stylistically sly and beautiful book, a wild ride of a novel set in a California everyone should know."

—Susan Straight, Take One Candle Light a Room, Highwire Moon, and Between Heaven and Here

"gods with a little g is sharp, witty, endlessly surprising, darkly comic, and bighearted to boot. The characters Tupelo Hassman has created will burrow under your skin like the illegal tattoo our narrator Helen gets in the tire yard: they will stay with you for a long time after. Just marvelous."

—Annie Hartnett, Rabbit Cake

"This book is a revelation. And it’s so very intoxicating to read. It got me drunker on its language’s wild, thorny beauty and the paper flowers of its love than even the Dickheads could get by chugging beers hanging upside-down, or needling prophecies into one another’s skins. I’m more than a little in love with Gods with a Little g, and with Helen, Dickhead Queen, Rosary Breakout Allstar, daughter, heroine, best friend. I wish she were my best friend. Hassman is a genius, and here she has written yet another book of my dreams: wildly inventive, brackishly funny, and, at times, devastating. But always absolutely true, and huge-hearted in its telling. Once I began reading it, I truly couldn’t stop. It’s guileless and gorgeous. It’s one of the loveliest things I’ve ever read. And it only changed the way I think about life, fiction, and what’s possible. Only all that."

—Alena Graedon, The Word Exchange

Irreverent, wise, heartbreaking, and heart-mending, this is about nothing less than the everyday challenges of love, belief, and existence. In Hassman's dazzlingly original style, sweet-sour, wicked-tender Helen's entrancing narration casts a remarkable spell. —Booklist (starred review)

…weird and uncomfortable and glorious—just like adolescence. —Kirkus (starred review)

Hassman’s writing vibrates with honesty, hilarity, and twists of language that sparkle with gusto. Very few books have the ricochet verve that this novel does. —Amazon Editors’ Picks (Best of the Month)

Chicago Review of Books, The Best New Books of August 2019

"Sweet and sour, magical yet grounded in reality: gods with a little g is one special coming-of-age tale. Take note, HBO: This would be perfect prestige TV fodder."

—Laura Albert, author of JT LeRoy’s Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

“This is a story to read when you are starving to connect, a book to fall into with your whole heart, to cry and laugh, and say hell yeah. I can't wait for readers to meet Helen, a cool kid who pushes right through the page in every form her words take, from letters to God to posters on light poles, irresistibly funny, entirely lovable. When a young person's faith is shattered by grief, mending the soul is delicate work. Tupelo Hassman has mastered this fragile form, and the sharp fragments of Helen's story come together like shards, reforming her into a glittering new shape in a story that is authentic in every way. This novel will steal your heart. If you think you're too cynical to cry over a girl's first love, here is the story to blow up your apathy.”

BOOKFORUM - INTERVIEW

LOS ANGELES TIMES - INTERVIEW

THE MILLIONS - INTERVIEW

WRITE OR DIE TRIBE - INTERVIEW

Writer's Digest - Interview

—Heidi Julavits, The Folded Clock and The Vanishers

—Susan Straight, Take One Candle Light a Room, Highwire Moon, and Between Heaven and Here

—Annie Hartnett, Rabbit Cake

—Alena Graedon, The Word Exchange

—Refinery29

—Carlene Bauer, Not That Kind of Girl and Frances and Bernard

—Willie Vlautin, Lean on Pete, Northline, and The Motel Life

—Zulema Renee Summerfield, Every Other Weekend

—Laura Albert, author of JT LeRoy’s Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

—Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky, and Everybody’s Baby