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Champeen A Novel by Heather Ross Miller Read an excerpt |
“I fell in love with Titania Gentry, whose pitch-perfect narrative voice tells all in this sassy, sweet, smart novel. It’s all about yearning: as a teenager, she’s desperate to win the heart of Sebastian McSherry, to escape from her crazy home life, and above all—to twirl the fire baton. As an adult, she’s trying hard to explain her life to her grown daughters. Champeen is also a lovely, bittersweet evocation of small-town life in North Carolina during World War II. I hated for it to end.”—Lee Smith
When her daughters jokingly stick a Post-it note that says “a born loser” onto her photograph, the adult Titania is jolted to reflect on why they might, even in jest, consider her a loser. She determines to write out the story of her youthful adventures to disprove their taunt, but her memories overtake her—both of her youthful escapades and shining moment of triumph and of the bittersweet more recent events of her adult life. Though she doesn’t get a word of it down, these memories become the narrative of this novel.
“I loved this book—I laughed and I cried and I was brought up short in the lovely way that only evidence of wisdom on the page can bring. Miller’s voice is seductive. I love the way the narrator ranges from adult to child in a nearly seamless weaving of self-knowledge and, for lack of a better term, a bullheaded innocence. Throughout, I felt myself in the hands of a champeen storyteller.”—Janet Peery
The author of fourteen books, including stories, poems, and novels, HEATHER ROSS MILLER is a member of an extended writing family that includes her father, two aunts, and their husbands. Miller grew up in North Carolina listening to people tell stories and ponder motives. Miller’s late husband, Clyde Miller, was a park ranger and forester; they lived for many years in various North Carolina state parks. A recent recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature, she currently teaches creative writing and literature at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. She has two grown children, Melissa Miller and Kirk Miller.
“A novel that hits all the right notes. It’s funny, sad, and wholly satisfying. It left me yearning for a revival in the fine art of fire baton twirling.”—Jill McCorkle
“A stunningly successful novel. The reader comes to know thirteen-year-old Titania through her fantasies, which are rich, often comic, more often touching and moving, and which ring absolutely genuine as the troubled and lively consciousness of a girl on the brink of womanhood.”—Gordon Weaver
“A champeen of a novel . . . hilarious and poignant.”—Bret Lott
Champeen
ISBN 0-87074-446-1
$19.95
6x9. 296 pp.
Fiction.
Publication Date: October 1999.
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