Heather Frese Interviews Evie Austin of The Baddest Girl on the Planet
“Frese debuts with an impressive examination of small-town island life in coastal North Carolina . . . dynamic structure and strong voice . . . Readers will find lots to love.”
—Publishers Weekly
Heather Frese Interviews Evie Austin of The Baddest Girl on the Planet
Heather Frese: Hi, Evie. Let’s get started. Hatteras Island, North Carolina, is one of the world’s most popular beach vacation destinations. What was it like growing up there?
Evie Austin: Right. Do you know how many stoplights there are on Hatteras Island? I’ll give you a second to Google it. Two. There are two stoplights on a 50-mile-long island, which should give you a sense of our lack of fun things that usually surround stoplights, such as movie theaters and McDonald’s and bowling alleys and art museums. Not that I’m all that big on art museums, though I did see an exhibit once in Raleigh where there was a courtyard full of giant, white, inflatable bunnies in various poses. That was pretty cool. You don’t get artsy stuff like giant, white, inflatable bunnies when you grow up on Hatteras Island with its two measly stoplights. Here’s what you do get:
Sticky burrs in your dog’s fur every time he goes outside to poop. Also, in your own feet if you step wrong.
Sand permanently ingrained in your swimsuit liner.
Salty braids you’ll stick in your mouth and suck on just for fun.
Your house will always smell slightly musty no matter how many Glade plug-ins you plug in, even the Cashmere Woods one, which does the best job of making it smell like you’re meandering through a rustic forest, but the damp-musty smell always manages to nudge through.
You’ll learn to surf before you can walk, though. I’m not even exaggerating.
The kids you learn to surf with and go to preschool with will also be the kids you go to elementary school with, and junior high, and high school, and gymnastics class up the beach, and the parents of these kids will have gone to preschool and elementary school and gymnastics up the beach with your parents, and the mom of your best neighborhood friend who has the pogo stick will have gone to prom with your dad, and the guy who owns the tackle shop closest to your house will have once thrown a crayon at your aunt that hit her in the eye so she had to go to the eye doctor, so your family won’t go to that tackle shop even though it’s closest to your house and they have the best selection of bluefish lures. And when you forget your lunchbox on the counter at home the lunch lady scoops mashed potatoes and hamburger gravy onto your tray without even asking if you can pay because she’s the sister of your mom’s best friend.
It’s pretty here, though. You get all kinds of beach days, like slick calm ones with flat blue water, and offshore breeze ones with curling spumes of waves, and the most exciting storms and hurricanes. And the sunsets – I’ve seen these all my life and never really get tired of them. Some of them are like splashes of sherbet across the whole sky. Sometimes you can see the sun sink in a big ball and the sky goes from light blue to azure to navy. Then, once it’s dark, the stars sprinkle out across the sky like someone poked a million holes in dark blanket and shone a golden light behind it.
So anyway, that’s a little bit about what it’s like to grow up on Hatteras Island.
HF: Okay, great. That was a very thorough answer. Another question: what surprises people about you?
EA: You know, I think it’s that I’m smart. People don’t suspect that about me because I’m also kind of flibbertigibbety. That’s a real word. I Googled it.
HF: What are you most proud of about your life?
EA: My son.
HF: What recurring dreams do you have?
EA: Oh, barf. Nothing good. I have this one where I’m in the passenger seat of a car and it’s driving by itself and then it’s going over a bridge but then the bridge dips down into the water and the car keeps going and I can’t control it or get out. Anxiety much?
HF: What family member were you closest to growing up?
EA: I’m super close with my brother, Nate, now, but growing up it was my Aunt Fay who really got me. She’d say things like, “Evie, you can’t push a rope, but you sure can pull it.” And somehow that would be exactly what I needed to hear.
HF: How would you describe your bestie, and what’s one thing you learned from her?
EA: How to pronounce “pedagogy,” hah. Her name is Charlotte, and she’s smart, funny, and really, really sensitive. And she has v. good hair.
HF: Fave holiday and why?
EA: I feel like Christmas is the standard answer here, but my favorite is Fourth of July. No pressure for buying presents, and there’s grilling and chilling, beer, hot dogs, watermelon and fireworks. Perfection.
HF: If you see a puddle on the ground, do you walk around it or over it?
EA: Leap!
HF: Snooze button or wake up immediately?
EA: I wish I was the type of person to wake up immediately. Unfortunately, I’m more like a four snooze attempts kind of girl.
HF: All-time favorite Halloween costume of yours?
EA: Vampire. I got the fancy glue-on fangs and swooshed my cape around all day and talked like I grew up in Transylvania instead of on Hatteras Island. It was the best.
HF: If you could own a mythical creature (unicorn, griffin, etc.), which one would you pick?
EA: A narwhal. Oh wait, that’s a real thing. But it should be a mythical creature. My answer stands.
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Bio:
Heather Frese’s fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Review, Front Porch, The Barely South Review, Switchback, and elsewhere, earning notable mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Essays. She received her master’s degree from Ohio University and her M.F.A. from West Virginia University. Coastal North Carolina is her longtime love and source of inspiration, her writing deeply influenced by the wild magic and history of the Outer Banks. She currently writes, edits, and wrangles three small children in Raleigh, North Carolina.
Blurbs:
“Frese debuts with an impressive examination of small-town island life in coastal North Carolina . . . dynamic structure and strong voice . . . Readers will find lots to love.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This sun-and-salt-kissed coming-of-age story reads like a wry, honest chat with a close friend.”
—Jaclyn Fulwood, Shelf Awareness
“Frese’s debut is a snappy novel with a relatable character that will resonate with readers.”
—LynnDee Wathen, Booklist
“Heather Frese has written a coming-of-age story like no other—with a fiercely original narrative voice that’s funny, brave, honest, and occasionally terrifying . . . in fact, compulsively readable!”
—Lee Smith, Blue Marlin and The Last Girls
“The Baddest Girl on the Planet is set on an island known as the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’ for all the shipwrecks it’s caused, which feels just right: the novel is about, among other things, the islands—both literal and metaphorical—where we feel stranded; the wrecks we cause or find ourselves marooned by. In The Baddest Girl on the Planet, Heather Frese explores some of the most tender spots of what it is to be human: how to come to terms with our choices, how to grow and change in a place that seems to want us to stay the same, and what it means to call a place (or another person) home.”
—Maggie Smith, Keep Moving and Good Bones
“Heather Frese’s The Baddest Girl on the Planet is an absolute knockout about seeing the ruts in the road of life and choosing to drive another way. Evie’s story is hilarious, edgy, heartwarming, and true—you’ll cheer for her at every turn and commiserate with her when things go wrong. There are unforgettable scenes involving a terrorizing Yorkshire Terrier, a postpartum chapter that was so vivid I had to remind myself my kids aren’t babies anymore, and, of course, Mike Tyson. I read this book in one sitting and loved every minute!”
—Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne, author of Holding On To Nothing
THE BADDEST GIRL ON THE PLANET
Evie Austin, native of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, might be the baddest girl on the planet. Not under-the-jail bad or even scary-tattoo bad, but bad enough, she thinks, to knock her off the good girl list. Evie has not lived her life in a straight line. There’ve been several detours―career snafus, terrible romantic choices, a loved but unplanned child―not to mention her ill-advised lifelong obsession with boxer Mike Tyson.
Evie is not plucky, but when life’s changes smash over her like the rough surf of the local shoreline, she muddles through―until that moment of loss and longing when muddling will no longer suffice. Evie must find ways to navigate the shoals and currents of her reputation and her choices, through the sometimes gritty, sometimes glistening relationships with she has with her family, her best friend, her romantic partners, and her Very Bad Dog.
This is the story of what the baddest girl on the planet must find in herself when a bag of pastries, a new lover, or quick trip to Vegas won’t fix anything, and when something more than casual haplessness is required. Whether she’s spying on tourists in the National Seashore Campground at age nine, dropping out of school at 19, testing out new choices at 29, or discovering who she is on the beaches of the Dominican Republic or the lurid neon strip of Las Vegas, Evie’s story explores the decisions and turning points that make us who we are.
The novel’s final effect is one of nostalgia in the face of life’s constant changes, made all the more poignant by the ebb and flow of the Hatteras Island waves. What does it mean to come of age in the Outer Banks, to love a place as deeply as you long for something more? Who are we when we don’t recognize ourselves? Each chapter is another one of Evie’s vividly rendered memories, and they appear one after another without regard for chronology, in the way real memories do. This protagonist is not for the faint of heart; Evie Austin, her hair stiff with salt, looks her reader squarely in the face.
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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, Interviews, On Writing
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