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As She Grows

by Lesley Anne Cowan

Lesley Anne Cowan’s debut novel makes good use of the motto “write what you know.” As She Grows tells the story of 15-year-old Snow, who struggles to avoid making the same bad lifestyle choices as her mother and grandmother before her but still ends up pregnant. It is not a new story, and is constantly at risk of turning into melodrama. But Cowan’s real-life work with at-risk youth allows her to include specific details to which an outsider would have little access. Cowan uses the novel form to present the complexities of some key social issues while exploring a fascinating character’s life.

Snow lives with her grandmother, a binge drinker whose unpredictable behaviour causes Snow to question her own sanity. As she explains, when living with someone who is crazy it is sometimes easier to adapt to their skewed viewpoints than to keep a grasp on reality. Terrified that she will get trapped in her grandmother’s world, Snow moves into a group home for teens, only to find that her past still continues to determine her present.

At first, Snow’s highly metaphorical manner of expressing herself seems overly literary and unrealistic. But it is exactly this gap between Snow’s dumbed-down slutty image and her perceptive thoughts that Cowan exposes through the novel’s complex language. Snow’s forced maturity allows her to express the ambiguities between successful and failed lives, but her teenage self-centredness prevents her from fully taking control of her future.

As She Grows is a bleak novel, especially when it discusses the power relations among the various social workers and the “less fortunate” whom they are supposed to help. However, the depth and clarity of Snow’s voice make it impossible for the novel to be hopeless.

 

Reviewer: Karin Marley

Publisher: Penguin Books Canada

DETAILS

Price: $24

Page Count: 284 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 0-14-301328-9

Issue Date: 2003-2

Categories: Fiction: Novels