Photographer Justine Kurland

Kurland creates images of utopian, hidden landscapes, playing with the idea of runaways in their own world. There’s often the presence of a wilderness that reminds me of Vancouver Island, even though it’s elsewhere—fog, cliffs, rough grasses, and tangled bushes. “Racing to Meet Me,” “Fu Fighters,” “Shipwrecked Car”—I’d often look at these photos when halted by writer’s block.

Girl on the album cover of Evol, by Sonic Youth

I don’t know who the girl on the cover of this album is, but when I was a teenager I was always secretly thrilled to look at her roaring upwards. I imagined Justine would look something like this, and have the same combination of playfulness and insanity. The songs on the album also inspired me—I wanted to find the equivalent sound in language. Many of these songs sound like the noise I imagine would arise from girls running around by railroad tracks, their hidden symphony.

“I don’t know who the girl on the cover of this album is, but when I was a teenager I was always secretly thrilled to look at her roaring upwards.”

Painter Karen Kilimnik

Kilimnik’s paintings are a fortunate alternative to the images of teenage girls in magazines. She’s interested in beauty, even obsessed with beauty, but her drawings and paintings don’t deaden or cheapen the subjects. Instead, the girls have the quality of heroines in fairy tales—regal, dreamlike, likely to face down disguised wolves or other masquerades.

Further Reading

Selected by Rebecca Godfrey

Voyage in the Dark, Jean Rhys

La Bâtarde, Violette Leduc

Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson

Pale Horse, Pale Rider, Katherine Anne Porter

The Member of the Wedding, Carson McCullers

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, Elizabeth Smart

The Road Past Altamont, Gabrielle Roy

Rain, Kirsty Gunn

Black Tickets, Jayne Anne Phillips

The Ravishing of Lol Stein, Marguerite Duras

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to my family, Karen Hanson, Iris Tupholme, Felicia Quon, Nikola Scott, Dan Conaway, Emma Parry, Byrd Leavell, Janet Johnson, Heather McGowan, Juliette Consigny, Fi Campbell, Michael Turner, Patrick Li, Eli Langer, Jeff Rogers, Louise Dennys, Alex M., Dean M., Julian M., Jesse Jr., and ever for J. C.

PRAISE FOR
The Torn Skirt

“As malignant and addictive as a cigarette.”

—Erika Krouse, New York Times Book Review

“Imagine William S. Burroughs as a young writer with a social conscience and you have Rebecca Godfrey…. The Torn Skirt is an exhilarating, surreal, and dreamlike trip through the passionate heart.”

—Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“I loved and believed the narrative of a sixteen-year-old mind—immature, abandoned, and yet exploding. It came from a heartfelt and true perception, an authentic writer’s desire. Which made it rock.”

—Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

“A compressed and graceful book…. A gorgeously choreographed ballet of full-tilt, reckless passion. A tough yet lyrical, dreamlike rush.”

—Oregonian

“I loved this book…. I can’t sleep because I just keep thinking about it.”

—Jane