Writing professor Jessica Handler鈥檚 debut novel, The Magnetic Girl,聽will be released April 9 by聽 and the praise is already rolling in.
Set in 1883,聽The Magnetic Girl is a coming-of-age novel that聽looks at one girl鈥檚 power over herself and those around her. Protagonist Lulu Hurst discovers a book that sparks her interest in electricity, a technology not yet well known to American life. Inspired by this new discovery, she convinces people that she can conduct electricity through her touch and begins traveling around the country performing feats of magic for excited onlookers.
The novel is based on the real Lulu Hurst, a Georgia native and vaudevillian performer who amazed people with her ability to demonstrate feats of great physical strength, a skill supposedly developed after an electrical storm.
“I hope that with this book readers fall in love, like I did, with Lulu Hurst, who is a mostly forgotten 鈥� and fascinating 鈥� figure from the late nineteenth century,” Handler says of the book.
The Wall Street Journal has included the book among its “.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution named Handler’s work聽among ““.
New York Times best-selling author Wiley Cash says, “Like the powers of Lulu Hurst, Jessica Handler’s literary power feels like a sleight of hand. It’s impossible that a novel can be this beautiful, this haunting, and this resonant, but your eyes (and your heart) are not deceiving you. The Magnetic Girl is a gorgeous, brutal book: a strange alchemy of love, fear, fate, and hope.”
Therese Anne Fowler, also a聽New York Times聽best-selling author, says 鈥�The Magnetic Girl is a compassionate, clear-eyed coming-of-age tale unlike anything I鈥檝e read. The story belongs to Lulu Hurst, but Handler is the one doing the true mesmerizing. What a unique, accomplished debut!鈥�
Handler鈥檚 first work of fiction follows her two other books, Invisible Sisters: A Memoir and Braving the Fire: A Guide to Writing about Grief. She also regularly publishes essays and non-fiction features on NPR and in publications such as聽Newsweek, and The Washington Post.
A number of local events are scheduled around the debut:
- 聽Little 5 Points, Atlanta, April 9, 7 p.m.
- Woodstock, GA, April 20, 2 p.m.
- Georgia Center for the Book, DeKalb Library, April 22, 7:15 p.m.聽
- Atlanta History Center, May 7, 7 p.m.
- 好色先生TV Library, April 29, 7 p.m.
You can learn more at聽聽and pre-order the book聽.
