In the small US town of Lithia, a group of girls run in the cross-country team for their local high school. July Fielding – not the fastest runner, but one of the mainstays – narrates this wonderfully eerie, surrealist story of teenage isolation. The team has a Friday run to Falls Creek, where the extra challenge is the jump from the cliff into the creek. This jump is central to the storyline.
July is walking back from the water when she realises all the townspeople have disappeared. She is mystifyingly alone. There’s no one around – no friends, no family. The school’s marquee display then shows, ‘GET TH3M BACK’ (there’s only one ‘E’ in the notice board box). She wishes she had her cat, Yolo, with her, and he wanders back into her life. Could she just wish for the others?
The narrative is in prose, but some chapters read as poetry. She feels there’s a person directing her, but they’re elusive: ‘flickering like a candle, like stars behind clouds’. Clues as to July’s isolation are drip-fed to the reader in short alternating chapters relating to both the present and the previous summer, along with a transcript of July’s session with her therapist. The clues feel like bricks to be laid by the reader with no idea of what the final shape of the building will be. Items associated with her friends and family appear, directing her to different locations. She eventually realises that the jump is where she will find the answers.
Condie’s writing is crystal clear in The Only Girl in Town. July needs to find the others in her life but, more importantly, she needs to find herself. Only then will life return to normal.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ally Condie is the author of the #1 New York Times-bestselling Matched trilogy and its companion novel, The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe. She is also the author of Summerlost, an Edgar Award winner. A former English teacher, Ally lives with her family outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She loves hiking, skiing, and being outside with people she loves. Ally has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is the founder and director of the nonprofit WriteOut Foundation.
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