Girling

Eve Esfandiari-Denney

‘In her astounding debut, Eve Esfandiari-Denney reports on the gerunds of a girl’s life: working, talking, listening, flowering, looking, seeing, pretending, embodying, doubling, selling yourself, losing yourself, “literally flowing through the solar system,” witnessing, shining, “holding the possibility for being prolonged, continued and remade,” levitating, swirling, healing, losing, opening, breathing in, breathing out, translating, yearning, crushing, dying. The speaker, a wise but humble narrator, charming and willing, takes us along as she “piece[s] together the delicate parts of what I am.” Pop culture references are deployed with power and she plays with philosophical questions like they are toys. Girling absolutely stopped me in my tracks. You lean in to get the full story and all of sudden you’ve been brought to your knees. Only a girl would write, of the cancer devastating her family, that, “the disease is just / trying to survive, / too.” Girling is a biodome for girls who think too hard. “I thought I’d discover transcendental things, but inside me was a tanning salon.” Yes, girl, same. Put it on my tombstone.’ – Sasha Debevec-McKenney