Hello Life

Review Andrea Koenigs second book is a solid example of finely honed fiction. The Dallas Morning News, July 2, 2005Hello Life...isnt a comfortable book. Its dark and difficult, yet its warm and oddly reassuring about family...and perseverance. The Oklahoman, May 1, 2005Koenig explores the...rich themes of love, jealousy, friendship and the resilience of youth. Seattle Times, May 27, 2005 Product Description In Hello Life, Andrea Koenig has created two enchanting characters who have that singular characteristic of literary art: They are at once utterly unique and resonantly universal. We follow Gwen and Lila in their search for self and learn much about ourselves. This is a book rich in story and brimming with humanity.Robert Olen ButlerGwen is newly motherless and of high school age. She needs help. She moves in with Mrs. Parker and another teenage girl shes looking after, Lila AbernathyLeukemia Girl. Lilas problem is cancer; Gwens is pregnancy. Her 37yearold boyfriend spends most of his time smoking pot in the van that doubles as his home, and his routine hasnt changed since he knocked her up. Gwen is facing life fast. She has to.Hello Life is utterly satisfying, a book you fall into like a comfortable bed. It is blissful to read something so engaging, so heartfelt and hardheaded, recounting the contentious but strong bond that develops between two waifs. They quarrel and bicker to divert attention from their real troubles of abiding loneliness and rootlessness. Gwen has an urgent feeling that she had better grow up quickly, given her situation, and Lila must grow up quickly because she might simply not have much life left. Gwen is sloppy and sexual, Lila, orderly and finicky. But different as they are, what they individually face connects them far more than their differences. What theyre confronting is life unbuffered, and its smacked them right in the kisser.Andrea Koenig is the author of a novel, Thumbelina, published by Scribner in the United States and Simon & Schuster in the United Kingdom. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Oklahoma State University. She makes her home in Tulsa. From Publishers Weekly Koenig chronicles the hardknocks lives and unlikely friendship of two 16yearold girls in her uneven new novel, set in a dreary little mill town in the Pacific Northwest. Thrown together in foster care, lippy Gwen Prez, who recently lost her mother, and prissy Lila Abernathy, a ballerina in remission from leukemia, clash and bond. Gwen loves horses and has a secret crush on Dennis, the popular boy who talks to her so shell do him favors in math class, but Koenig saddles her with more hardship than her mothers death: she becomes sexually active with and pregnant by her absent fathers potsmoking, nearly 40yearold friend. Koenig propels the tale with punchy, moviestyle dialogue that doesnt seem to fit in the mouths of troubled teenagers, and Gwens narration of the story lacks a consistent tone. The novels setup might make for inspirational juvenile fiction, in which hardship somehow strengthens the protagonists, but for adult readers the candystore realism may disappoint. Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. About the Author Andrea Koenig is an Assistant Professor of creative writing at Oklahoma State University. In 1996 she received a Fullbright award to Northern Ireland. Ms. Koenig has an MFA from Syracuse and is the author of one previous novel, Thumbelina, published by Scribner in 1999. She makes her home in Tulsa.