Precious Ugly - by Rae Cline (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Clementine is a girl in trouble. She's homeless, living in a conversion van at a campground tucked into a little stretch of riverfront on the Potomac. She's hungry, craving Pop-Tarts while forced to eat fried snake for supper. And she's pregnant. Daddy says he'll fix it. But unlike Mama and the folks who believe he can walk on water, Clem knows better than to trust Daddy.

In Precious Ugly, Rae Cline draws us into the story of a thirteen-year-old girl seeking to escape her abusive, alcoholic, charismatic father and desperate to protect her mother. Set in 1985 in Harpers Ferry and Jolo, West Virginia, it's a story anchored in the promise of Reagan, the fear of AIDS, the songs of Patti Smith, Cyndi Lauper, and Tina Turner heard through a Walkman, and other signs of its time and place. It's also a universal and ongoing story about poverty, addiction, religious charlatans, sexual predators, and how children are made to suffer for the sins of their parents. As told through the eyes of its remarkable young heroine, Precious Ugly is ultimately a story about the everyday marvels of tenacity and resourcefulness, the kindness of strangers, and the possibility of breaking the cycle of domestic violence and generational trauma.

Review Quotes

"Rae Cline has written a vivid, harrowing account of a young girl struggling to find meaning in difficult circumstances. Clementine is thirteen, pregnant, and looking for a miracle. Her father claims to know that a miracle is coming. But what they get is something else altogether. Or is it? Cline works with a lyrical, meticulous prose style to depict a story that needs to be told. A bold and courageous work of fiction that book clubs and readers of all kinds will adore." -Matt Bondurant, author of North Country, Oleander City, The Night Swimmer, and Lawless

"This is a novel that treads closely to a daunting reality, that protection and safety are not guaranteed by the systems we rely upon, in this instance the nuclear, patriarchal family. In fact, Precious Ugly expresses the commonness with which these systems make us available for maximum damage, especially for women and girls. Relentless, the writing is a beautiful and precise knife. It carves out a nuanced story that tenderly but honestly shows the reader that overcoming the serial patterns of abandonment that we call relationships is only possible by building our escapes in secret every day, by imagining-despite what reality trains us to expect-an elsewhere of more." -Jessica Lanay, author of am-phib-ian

"Gorgeous, brutal, and moving, Precious Ugly is a powerful testament to human resilience. I could not stop rooting for Clementine, or marveling at her toughness, her tenacity, and her capacity for finding hope and meaning even amid suffering. This is a character, and a story, that will stick with me for a long time." -Jordan Ritter Conn, author of American Men and The Road From Raqqa

Rae Cline's debut novel, Precious Ugly, does the unexpected. It's a story about humanity: love, hardship, survival. The reader becomes one with Clementine; Cline brings empathy to the page in so many unique and compelling ways. A must-read. Phenomenal. A masterpiece. -Kim Chinquee, Author of Contact with the Wild