These fifteen linked micro-memoirs imbed us in the mind of a child learning to understand her world-but the world she navigates is trip-wired by violence and trauma. We follow chronologically as she moves from fearing the witches under her bed to stealing her stepfather's pot to fully inhabiting her inheritance of anger. Ultimately, however, Coutley's journey reminds us that, with great effort, anger can be relinquished.
Small Girl
is a narrative of that triumphant, hard-working muscle, the human heart. -Beth Ann Fennelly, author of
Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs
, W.W. Norton