Although T. Greenwood is a prolific writer, Such a Pretty Girl is the first of her books I have read. It’s one of those books where nothing happens–I mean this is a book driven by character, not plot–and yet it is absolutely riveting.

When the novel opens, Ryan Flannigan is counting down the last few days before her daughter, Sasha, heads to the West coast to start college. Ryan’s childhood bestie, Gilly, keeps sending her urgent texts before finally just sending her a link to a story from the Times. Ryan is shocked to discover that the story is about her mother, Fiona, from whom Ryan is mostly estranged. Worse, the story is about the discovery of a very personal photo of Ryan when she was just a girl that was found in the possession of Zev Brenner, a billionaire who has been charged with sex trafficking and pedophilia a la Jeffrey Epstein. This news is followed by even more shocking news and Gilly begs Ryan to come back to New York City.

Such a Pretty Girl bounces between the 1970s and present day 2019. As a child, Ryan lived with her mother, Fiona, in Lost River, Vermont, home to the Lost River Playhouse where Fiona was an aspiring actress. Lost River was meant to be a “summer respite for actors who worked in the city and a place for aspiring actors to apprentice themselves.” Fiona had been there since 1965 and she and Ryan lived there full time. Gilly and his family also live at Lost River, but only in the summer. Gilly’s father is a working actor and his mother an artist in New York.

Fiona decides to leave Lost River and go into the city to give acting a more serious try, but in the end it is Ryan, who is just ten, who is discovered–first as a model and then as an actress. This strains the relationship between mother and daughter. The time the novel spends in NYC

After Gilly gives Ryan the news about the discovery of the photograph, he begs Ryan to come back to Westbeth, an apartment building populated by dancers and actors and artists and, famously, Jackie O. It’s a real place, actually. It’s worth reading about its interesting history and it is definitely a character in Greenwood’s book. So, in the present day Ryan and her daughter head back to the city and to the place that she, for a very important time in her life at least, called home. There are matters to attend to, and ghosts to exorcise.

This book is very evocative of a time and place and as someone who loves New York and grew up in the 1970s, I found that very compelling. I also loved Ryan’s recollection of her childhood, the perspective skewed through the lens of adulthood. When she recalls her first major ad campaign (for Love’s Baby Soft, a mainstay of every teenage girl in the 1970s) she says

I am wearing fake eyelashes, pink rouge on my cheeks, and lip gloss so thick and shiny you can almost see your reflection in my pout. I am holding a pale pink stuffed bunny. But you can’t tell if I am a child made up to look like an adult, or an adult made to look like a child. When I found the ad years later, it felt like someone had punched me in my throat.

And if you are wondering where Ryan’s mother was in all this, yeah, that’s kind of the point.

This is a terrific, well-written book. Highly recommended.