Trampoline (2015) by Robert Gipe

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Trampoline (2015)

by Robert Gipe

Cumberland Mountains, Kentucky

Kentucky: 11/16

   Another day, another coming of age novel about a teen girl growing up in difficult circumstances in an underprivileged American community.   One theme I've noticed about character in novels set in the rural south is the almost utter absence of any desire to escape one's surroundings.  Most likely that comes from the difficult/oppositional relationship many of these characters have towards formal education, even the smart ones.  The idea that a young, smart character living in rural poverty might reject advancement through education in favor of wallowing in the human misery of their surroundings is a strange one to me.  Before the 1,001 Novels I thought the idea of using formal education as a means of escape was essentially universal in the United States, but such is not the case.  It's not the case thus far in Kentucky, and it mostly was not the case in the deep south: Mississippi and Alabama in particular.

   Here, our teenage protagonist shuttles between her addiction adjacent mother and environmental activity grandmother who is focused on defeating the permit of a mining company to "de-top" a nearby mountain, a controversial stance considering the number of people who are employed by said mining company in the local community.  Gipe does a good job capturing the tumultuous inner life of an adolescent girl, but seriously are there any other types of adolescent girl in ya lit?