The Lost Girls

By Lin Hendler

For anyone who's ever felt lost in an angst-filled world, The Lost Girls offers a moving account of several young women estranged from the society around them. Ranging from urban Los Angeles to... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0974489077
• ISBN13: 9780974489070
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Silver Light Publications
• Length: 137 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent first book!

This book was a cold, shocking reminder of the past. As someone whose teenage years were fulfilling, yet felt unfinished, these stories reminded me of my past which is slowly fading into a distant memory. Thanks to this book, those memories have been refreshed, allowing me to savor them one more time. While turning the pages, I couldn't help but think that the author had embedded tiny glimpses of her own life into the lives of the characters. Truly a satisfactory read. I look forward to reading more from the author in the future.

Advanced Praise for The Lost Girls

"The Lost Girls" pulls no punches. With candid prose and vivid images, Lin Hendler takes us into a frightening world of teenage drug use, isolation and madness. It is a sad, honest indictment of American society, and a compelling read. -The Mail Tribune, Medford, Oregon I was instantly struck by Lin Hendler's intelligence and creative strength. In her work was the emergence of a very real talent- a literary artist in the making. Her journey into the lives of deceptively ordinary young women is embedded with beautifully crafted, wry prose. Hendler sheds light on a problem that many are faced with today - a sense of the self that is so skewed, perceived normalcy is anything but, and true individuality is found only when not looked for. If you let her story sink in, it will lead you to new ground and your own epiphany of a quite different, haunting, reality that goes beyond any of the expectations you had previously conceived. Hendler's handling of the material is impressive. Look for more to come from this promising new author. Barney Rosset Evergreen Review Bittersweet, sensitive, and humorous, The Lost Girls is a kaleidoscopic collection of coming of age stories. The Lost Girls has the spirited authenticity of a natural talent whose words are written straight from the heart. Nick Setka Black Oak Books, Berkeley, CA In this stunning first novel, Lin Hendler does more than tell the increasingly familiar tale of female teenage angst. Her stories of young girls and women lost in the uncertainties of growing up, fragile with drugs and sex, embody their longing for connection and intimacy. Hendler is a "warrior of the heart." She confronts us with anger and draws from us compassion as we enter into her "lost girls" need and confusion. The novel is structured by couples, girls who "deux par deux" travel through sites of teen consumption, empty homes and spaces that offer pleasure and danger. Boys and men may be at the center of these encounters but are at the periphery of the girls deepest encounters with themselves, which they share only with each other. These are "romantic friendships" but bereft of the pathways to adulthood that their nineteenth century counterparts, enmeshed in the secure but limited domesticity of middle class life, offered. While Hendler's girls indict their mothers - and their fathers - for their absence and self-preoccupation, as author she signals something else: a world in which women have not yet found their power and men find pleasure only in work. The affluent world of Los Angeles leaves all adrift, unable to comfort or even live with one another. There is no place of safety for the young. Lost Girls is compelling. Hendler's propels us through her girls' desires to make sense of their world by capturing their language, dress, and manners with devastating specificity. We come to know them, in all their craziness, vulnerability, and poignancy. It is a trip well worth going on. Barbara Scott Winkler Director,

Review from ForeWord Magazine

Review ForeWord Magazine November - December 2005 Issue By Carol Lynn Stewart The Lost Girls by Lin Hendler This chilling tale of girls, not growing up, but merely existing in Los Angeles and its environs, is not your mother's coming-of-age tale. Caught between bulimia, cocaine, and heroin, the girls traverse the dangerous territory of hopelessness: empty houses (however palatial these are), abandoned parks, and tired old diners where key lime pie is on the menu. "I like key lime pie," one girl says, "because it is fake. It has no place in reality." The girls numb themselves to escape their need for someone, anyone, to be there for them. Parents are either not around at all, are crazy, or have lives so stretched by work or the craven need for the right house, the right body, or the right relationship that they are only on the periphery of their daughter's lives. So, too, are the men in the story. Boyfriends are almost missing, yet their power over the girls' lives is still felt. When a man on the Paris Metro cops a feel of two of the girls, these very modern young women "silently make excuses for him." One of them feels perhaps the train bumped her into him. The other wonders if perhaps her skirt is too short. Later, one of them says, "We're so ready and willing to take the blame." Her companion and best girlfriend replies, "We're both a couple of lost girls. And that's why I love you. So there, someone does love you." That is the crux of the matter. Frantic to find meaning in life, they plunge into drugs, recreational sex, and relationships, and finally are washed up on a barren shore facing their own desperation. Love is so palpably missing in these girls' lives that they hardly even touch each other, passing by in the darkness of their own cruel fortune to be born female in a city where even perfection isn't good enough. With a bachelor's from Reed College, this promising young author attended the graduate program of Medieval Studies in York, England. This is her first novel, and she tells it in chapters that jump from character to character, from third-person to first-person point of view, with changes of scene, and even changes in tense, all handled with supreme authority. The Lost Girls haunts the reader. On a Halloween outing, one of the girls states, "When snakes get really sick, they do something called `stargazing.' When we get really sick, we die. I mean, what would you rather do? Die, or stargaze?" Moments like this flow through the book, in the same way the motion of a manta ray drifts through quiet ocean, hypnotic, leading the reader onward through the girls' desire for hope, a wish that is so poignant it is painful, yet the reader does not want to put the book down, reluctant to miss these moments of a beauty that aches. Carol Lynn Stewart