Love, loss, and Southern tradition fuel 'Girls in Trucks'

Girls in Trucks By Katie Crouch Little, Brown, 241 pp., $21.99

First-time novelist Katie Crouch speaks with a big, self-aware voice about the role of tradition, especially Southern tradition, in the age of cellphones, laptops, and globalization. Crouch grew up in Charleston, S.C., at a time when new investment and immigration from the North collapsed the rigid social hierarchies of the city. The women of her debut novel, "Girls in Trucks," navigate these same murky waters between the Old South, a land of crumbling plantations, and the New South, an international landscape filled with sex, drugs, and multiculturalism.

Sarah Walters, a reluctant debutante, travels from Charleston to a liberal arts college in New England, where she experiences disappointing relationships and a major career setback. When a family tragedy draws her back to Charleston, Sarah learns the meaning of tradition and reconciles with the ghosts of her childhood.

Crouch uses this time-tested narrative well, luring the reader into a false sense of security and then turning the structure inside out, depicting the hard realities of modern sexuality, drawing unexpected conclusions about friendship, family, and love, and ultimately proving the feminist motto that the personal is political.

Sarah belongs to the Camellias, the most elite social club in Charleston. As the youngest generation of Camellias, Sarah and her best friends Bitsy, Charlotte, and Annie suffer through lectures on "the importance of a consistently neat appearance, why one must not be seen out socially too often, the tastefulness of floral arrangements," and other concerns.

After graduating from high school, Sarah falls in love with a sweet, plainspoken boy and loses her virginity in a moment of conflicted passion. As she follows her boyfriend to the beach, she considers the painful consequences of love, the fear of abandonment, and the loss of autonomy.

This tension between self-preservation and surrender follows Sarah through most of her adult life. After college, she pursues ill-advised relationships that carry her from Europe to New York to Vermont, all the way to South America, and finally back to Charleston. The older Camellias tell her to remain optimistic, to "keep all the burners going" in the search for a husband. Sarah takes their advice to heart, careening between one-night stands and half-hearted relationships, becoming a single mother in the process.

After her father dies, Sarah moves back to her childhood home to care for her stubborn, self-sufficient mother. During her trips into town, she reconnects with J.T., one of the farm boys from her youth.

Through their friendship, Sarah discovers the difficult choices her own mother made for love. As the secrets unravel, the Camellias reveal their strength and compassion, proving that their traditions offer comfort, not conformity. In a joyful moment, surrounded by friends and family, Sarah finally grasps the nature of love, leaving her desperate for more and ready to sacrifice her own safety for another taste. While painful, the revelation allows Sarah to face the future with grace and self-assurance.

Crouch draws on her childhood to create a vivid portrait of class and culture in modern Charleston. In the same way, she uses a genuine gift for down-home storytelling to create recognizable, nuanced characters. Sarah, who narrates most of the book, speaks in a warm voice that pulls the story through some of its darker moments. Even smaller characters, like J.T. and Charlotte, demonstrate a complexity and a sincerity that resonate beyond the page.

Crouch achieves this realism by placing her characters squarely in the modern world. J.T. discusses his divorce and his decision to stop drinking. Charlotte battles with depression and drug addiction. Bitsy faces cancer. Even Sarah falls in love with a sadist who breaks her nose.

With a vast array of characters and subplots packed into a brief narrative, the pacing often feels disjointed. Major revelations surface and then disappear before they take on real emotional weight. Instead, Crouch dwells on the dreary routine of life in New York City. As Sarah drifts between cramped apartments, gray cityscapes, and doomed loves, the story almost grinds to a halt.

Despite its flaws, "Girls in Trucks" has more to like than to dislike. With her gritty, vibrant portrait of Charleston, Crouch brings a fascinating culture to mainstream America. Her characters connect with the audience without pandering or drawing easy conclusions. Even the slower passages redeem themselves with intriguing shifts between voices and perspectives. The fact that Crouch sometimes leaves the reader wanting more speaks well for her future as a writer.

Kristen Luther is a freelance writer based in St. Louis.