Girl Crazy [Paperback]

Writing about sex can be a tricky affair. The sexual act (and its corresponding emotional components) is both intimate and ridiculous, and if not approached with wit and grace, can appear absolutely ludicrous (see, for example, Paulo Coelho’s laughable Eleven Minutes).

Russell Smith understands sex, at least from the young white male perspective. The author’s previous fiction often commented on sexual mores (and his pornographic novel Diana: A Diary in the Second Person did quite a bit more); Girl Crazy puts the act and its consequences front and centre.

The novel focuses on Justin, a community college teacher who becomes obsessed with 20-year-old Jenna, whose sexual ferocity blinds him to her flightiness and legally questionable background. Justin is enthralled with her faintly dangerous lifestyle, but when the relationship ends, he continues to follow the corrupting path she set him on, and Smith’s tale morphs into a menacing and incisive search for self.

Smith excels at presenting the sexual fixations of the male psyche, slicing them apart and exposing the emotional impotence beneath. Justin, still an adolescent at heart, fetishizes each woman who crosses his path, living for “the fright of helplessness that he felt when he felt himself staring so hard at a woman who was not staring back: the feeling of seeping power … that you were the wailing infant, waiting for her to feed you.”

Of course, only half of Girl Crazy is a tale of sexual exploration; the other half is a satire of an educational system in which teachers find themselves hobbled by incompetent leadership, PR flaks, and a “stupid province-wide test designed by the kind of idiot who thinks Business English is a real subject.”

Justin’s personal transformation and some of the novel’s criminal elements lend Girl Crazy the air of a thriller à la Susanna Moore’s In the Cut. But Smith is more concerned with the psychological ramifications of hormonal obsession, and his exacting control over Justin’s odyssey from passive sexual spectator to active participant results in a story of scathing insight.

"Smith excels at presenting the sexual fixations of the male psyche, slicing them apart and exposing the emotional impotence beneath. ... Some of the novel's criminal elements lend Girl Crazy the air of a thriller ... [b]ut Smith is more concerned with the psychological ramifications of hormonal obsession, and his exacting control ... results in a story of scathing insight." --Quill & Quire

"Daring and well executed. ... Most will likely fixate on the sex in Girl Crazy, and why not? Smith writes it well; nary a cringe-worthy adjective, and raw enough to be real. But Girl Crazy is more about class than it is about sex. ... Girl Crazy is a hot floor show for those of us desperate for the present to finally get its time in the Canadian literary spotlight." --Zoe Whittall, Globe and Mail

"His best novel yet. ... What Smith is saying here is that the literate, liberal culture ... is all but dead, replaced by loud, brash surfaces, primitive emotional needs and an almost demonic suburban sprawl. ... Girl Crazy is a frank and funny novel. The depiction of an emotionally stunted man's undignified lust for an even more immature young woman is disturbing and almost note-perfect. A lot of people won't like the novel's message, but they'd better learn to deal with it. The future is here and some might find it sexy, but it sure ain't pretty." --James Grainger, Toronto Star

"Girl Crazy rips a mile a minute. Smith has pulled off the sort of author-reader telepathy that lesser writers can only dream about. The book is ridiculously visceral. ... Smith has a good ear for dialogue and a finely honed sense of just how much detail to put in. And he writes a mean love scene. ... For all its graphicness, the most compelling thing about Girl Crazy is its honesty. Despite its raunch and raw emotion, the story's reality check stays firmly engaged. ... You'll probably have a hard time putting down Girl Crazy. It powers on to a conclusion that's both satisfying and oddly disquieting." --The Gazette (Montreal)

"A darkly comic study of fractured masculinity. ... The nicely ambiguous conclusion can be seen as either the recognition of a kind of atavistic male impulse, or a cautionary tale about the perils of pursuing desire to its most dangerous extreme." --Steven W. Beattie, The Walrus

Tightly plotted and fast paced, Girl Crazy is a cinematic ride through one man’s obsession with a younger woman. Justin, a dissatisfied community college teacher, meets Jenna and is attracted at once to her mixture of toughness, vulnerability and ripe sexuality. Jenna is unlike anyone Justin has ever known -- through her he discovers a world of drugs and sex, casual violence and intimidation that at first frightens and then thrills him.

Justin falls deeper into Jenna’s thrall, particularly as her erratic behaviour keeps him guessing. When Jenna ends the relationship abruptly, Justin finds he isn’t willing to let go of this new life, or of Jenna, without a fight.

RUSSELL SMITH, born in South Africa and raised in Halifax, is a writer of wide acclaim. His debut novel, How Insensitive, was a finalist for the Governor General's Award. Both his short story collection, Young Men, and his novel Muriella Pent were shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. He is also the author of Noise; The Princess and the Whiskheads (a fable); Diana: A Diary in the Second Person; and the style guide Men's Style. Smith works regularly with the CBC and The Globe and Mail.

Russell Smith, born in South Africa and raised in Halifax, is a writer of wide acclaim. His debut novel, How Insensitive, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. Both his short story collection, Young Men, and his novel Muriella Pent were shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. He is also the author of Noise; The Princess and the Whiskheads (a fable); Diana: A Diary in the Second Person; and the style guide Men’s Style. Smith works regularly with the CBC and The Globe and Mail.