Scags at 7
The year is 1958, and in a middle-class suburb of Chicago we find Scags about to begin her summer vacation. It would be a perfect time except that her best friend, Julia, is about to leave for summer camp. After Julia leaves, Scags thinks the most difficult challenge of her summer will be making a new friend. But slowly, she notices strange things beginning to happen to her Pops. Pops, her father and favorite adult, is not the same and her mother and grandparents are speaking in hushed tones. As her relationship to her Pops changes from trusting and caring to frightening and unexpected, what begins as an innocent summer vacation quickly transforms into a roller coaster ride of actions, emotions, and trying to understand the inexplicable behavior of adults.
Scags at 7 is the first in a series of four books all told in Scags’ voice as she grows and develops, moving from the relative safety of home in Scags at 7, to the world of college in the 1960s, to New York City during the turbulent 1980s and into Scags’ middle age where she ends her saga, but not the overarching story of the entire series. The series is an attempt to capture a woman’s journey from childhood onward, a constant coming of age story that never really ends. Scags at 18 (the second volume) will be available in Fall 2010.
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What People are saying about Scags at 7
REVIEWS
“Literature and beyond with this work of imagination, keen observation and disarming power. She skillfully draws us into the multi-layered 1950s suburban world of her young heroine and her family, capturing a very specific moment in time. In this life-defining summer, we are drawn in by Scags’ distinct voice of wonder, boisterousness and vulnerability. A story that truly packs a punch.”
- Paula Kamen, author of All in My Head
“Her voice is fresh, vibrant, and winning. Deborah Emin’s rendition of a smart, strong, scrappy seven year-old facing some difficult experiences is wonderfully authentic and appealing. Scags’ exhilarating energy gives me strength I can use in my own 42 year-old life.”
- Donna Minkowitz, author of Ferocious Romances, and writer for The New York Times Book Review and Salon
“Deborah Emin’s passionate Scags at 7 is an exploration of a dark familial reality, told to us by a precocious girl-child, age 7. We are immersed in a sensuous Midwestern landscape, sights and sounds fraught with the newness and uniqueness of each of Scag’s moments. Scags at 7 is peopled by a host of richly drawn, unforgettable characters. The reader experiences this lyrical tour de force as if she too was a child – before the blindness and blunting of adulthood. Emin has written a magical, haunting novel, a child walking the knife-edge between comedy and tragedy, speaking in a joyous and melodious tongue.”
- Stephanie Dickinson, author of the novel, Half-Girl
READER COMMENTS
Deborah Emin creates an authentic child’s voice that bubbles forth from a freckle faced, red-headed seven year old who christens herself “Scags”, a name she gave to her father’s red tipped glowing cigars when she was two years old. Scags at 7 takes us on a journey back to childhood replete with observations and insights that make us squint and nod, dislodging our adult filter, conjuring the myriad forgotten details that pulsed and burned and danced our own childhoods to life. With deceptively simple language, Emin weaves a tale that begins with Scags’ unconditional love for “Pops”, a fun-loving, gregarious father who allows her such ecstasies as steering the family car and walking on the kitchen ceiling.
As Pops’ behavior becomes more and more erratic, Scags bears witness to the hard lessons life has to offer. This is a refreshing book that reveals the sweet honesties of childhood without ever descending into the realm of maudlin manipulation.
-Neil Intraub
Scags at 7 is the beautifully written story of a young girl whose dreamy visions of early childhood are about to be shattered by the encroaching realm of adults. Deborah Emin has given us a novel which captures the heartbreaking innocence of young Celia Harper Morgenstern in the face of a juggernaut of reality. Her adventures in the summer between the second and third grade take her on a journey filled with heartache and laughter, confusion and the crystal clarity of an eastern sage. Indeed, she sometimes sees through the haze of adult sophistication with a mature simplicity which belies her age. Scags is the unifying factor in the web of characters who define her world. Her allegiance to her “Pops” through it all will reassure the most jaded among us that love can not only carry us through the hard times, it can keep the promise of the future alive in all of us.
Scags at 7 is a buoyant, wonderful homage to the human spirit. I enthusiastically recommend it.
- Kevin McTighe