Live Girls

by Beth Nugent

Following her critically acclaimed collection of short stories, City of Boys, Beth Nugent brings her dark and eerie vision to a powerful first novel.

Live Girls is the story of Catherine, in her twenties, who sells tickets in a run-down porn theater in a decrepit port city, A sign in the window of the seedy hotel where she lives reads Transients Welcome. Her only friend is Jerome, an anorexic drag queen who searches for love among the sailors.

As Catherine and Jerome set out for Hollywood, we witness -with equal horror and fascination -- their desperate attempt to find redemption in a world that offers them so little.

In haunting, stylized prose, Nugent takes us deep into her protagonist's psyche while painting a bizarre -- yet oddly familiar -- picture of a dissociated, disconnected America. Live Girls is a tour de force that will leave no one who reads it unshaken.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, LGBT

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Bruno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow, bleak, surreal and over the top. That's my kink! I want to phone random people and whisper 'Debbie!' in their ears.

[Adam Lillystone · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novel is short, at 200 pages, but takes time to read. The prose is beautiful to read but full of sadness and haunting passages that shake you as you read them. Catherine is a lonely girl with a seemingly depressing past. She is estranged from her parents and her sister is dead, however, her sister is one of the most spoken of aspects of Catherine’s life. Her sister haunts her waking moments and as we find out more and more about the sister she becomes a very important character. Catherine compulsively lies her way through life; lying to her only friend Jerome, her parents and her boss at the run-down porn theatre where she sells tickets.
Everything in the world is telling Catherine and Jerome to just lie down and quit but they decide they need to leave the portside city where they reside and move to Hollywood. This is where the story really picks up and we join Catherine and Jerome on the road with a dying cat, Debbie. They are looking for redemption in different ways that are sad and horrifying.
If you fail to make a connection with Catherine or Jerome then I think the novel would be difficult to read due to the depressing nature of it, but if you can connect with one of them it is a journey that you are taking together. You start to root for them to find the redemption they so desperately seek.
Live Girls is a haunting and upsetting novel. If that isn’t your thing then I would avoid it, otherwise there is a novel of substance here that had characters that touched me. Beautifully haunting prose makes it a joy to read, even through the difficult parts.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quiet, aching ode to American loneliness. Like an Edward Hopper painting with tired legs and a dark past.

[Lars Meijer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een soort Midnight Cowboy, maar dan nog uitzichtlozer.

*4,5

[gabrielle v · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I'll only know how I feel about this book a couple of months from now

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was beautifully well written but so upsetting it took me a very long to get through it. it was one of the first books in a long time whose surreal sadness literally made me feel a little sick/dizzy. read it, but brace yourself.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

After reading this I always checked used bookstores for other Beth Nugent...I never hear anything about her, but this is a little gem, kind of bleak - ok, quite bleak - but so well done. It's been several years but it still sticks in my head.

[Woody · Rating 4 out of 5]

This reminded me of Forever Valley by Marie Redonnet, maybe too bleak for Americans in the 90s to handle, but today it seems just about right. I think this novel's really about daring to live (or begin to attempt to live) in a reality that has given you many, many reasons not to.

[Kate Learson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is remarkably depressing, so much so that even to praise the writing as incredible sounds trite against the shadows of the characters. The dinner scene was my fave- hilarious.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

While it doesn't quite meet the high-water mark of City of Boys , this is still a phenomenal book — dark, compelling, written in prose that makes me so fucking jealous — by one of the most criminally underread and unknown writers of her generation surely. Get into Beth Nugent, y'all, and thank me later.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. Yes, it's depressing. Yes, it's sad. If you don't like sad and depressing, it should probably be avoided.

I found City of Boys (her story collection) more satisfying, but Live Girls is still one of my all-time favorites.

[Bryan Glosemeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite novels ever. Dark, confused, sexual, without being exploitive or melodramatic.

If I was a writer, this is how I would want to be able to write...

[Kurlyrebel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not for the fantasy reader. It is written for those that view the world in a realistic way or simply want to watch on the outskirts. The lead character Catherine, is a damaged woman from a damaged home. She lives day to day existing within two worlds, real and imaginary. She seems to attract nothing but damaged people and all live in this odd mismatched world.
This is absolutely a book worth reading and I will keep an eye out for future works by this author.

[Maggie Liston · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book broke my heart. Gorgeous descriptive writing.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The woman in the cave.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

brilliantly grim

[Sami · Rating 2 out of 5]

👁️👄👁️

[Michael]

Just like her collection of stories, this is sparse, yet haunting. A heavy trip into the psyche of someone unsure of the weight themselves.

Side note: I don't think I've ever been this upset that an author didn't have more books, but forever grateful to have read her two. Will read again and again. Transients welcome.

[Dearwassily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would give this 3.5 if I could. Until Catherine and Jerome leave for Hollywood, the story crawls along, so about 2/3 of the book. Not only does it crawl, but in the most downtrodden grime, which left me riven: is this an important work of abjection or is the author trying to shock us with apathy?

[Emma · Rating 1 out of 5]

as sparse as her short stories but so depressing i had to stop reading it

[Vivienne Strauss · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just re-read this book for the second time - loved it just as much this time around. Would give it 10 stars if I could.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt the mood

[Notcathy J · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cathy has written, "dear at $2.99."