North Street First Prize for Literary Fiction, 2022.  read review, Feb. 2023.

Laurie Stone, author of Streaming; My Life as an Animal; and Everything is Personal.

 

“One of the great pleasures and tensions of Wendy Sibbison’s sharply observed first novel, Helen in Trouble, is that the narrator looks back lovingly at the most dramatic and terrifying event of her protagonist’s young life—the time, at age 16, she finds herself pregnant after a night of drunken sex. The period is 1963, the place Virginia, where abortion won’t be legal for another 10 years.

"Helen’s parents expect great things of her—‘Eleanor Roosevelt, but pretty.’ As she carries the secret of her pregnancy, she enters a radical aloneness, coming awake to what she wants, what she can accomplish, and who she can trust.  Sibbison brilliantly evokes the vagueness of the body to an adolescent girl, the way it feels like a foreign country you happen to live in.

"If this is historical fiction, it’s the kind that evokes now and our possible futures. This book will remind you of your life if you’ve ever almost lost it.”

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Readers

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Melinda C.  "Thanks for the wonderful beach read!"

 

Ann M.   "I loved all the characters, the rich portrayals of

their worlds--all felt so vivid and real.  So smartly drawn,

so immediate, full of wit and compassion. And the topic,

well, here we are again in 2021, still fighting to keep the

clock from rolling back to square one."

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Hannah L. "The writer does a  lovely job painting a picture

of the times, for those of us who weren't there, without

tangents or distracting explanations. The story is totally

engaging and, at times, had me on the edge of my seat."

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Lynn P.  "Real, revelatory, tough, honest, well written. I ended wishing to know more about Helen, her mom, and her dad. All such real life characters."

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Jack G. "I just LOVED this book. Found myself very emotionally wrapped up in the end."

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Patricia L.  "Brilliant. The characters are wonderful, totally believable. I was on tenterhooks as I came to the end . . . . I did especially love Mrs. Manderly and all the Latin--which I certainly do not speak or read."

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Bill O. "I was particularly impressed by the attention to detail in the book's descriptions of places and persons. It helped me visualize both as I read it. The literary style captured me from the beginning and was responsible in part for keeping me up late in the evening to finish reading it in one day!"

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Marianna R.  "I was thinking a lot about my own mother, who is Helen's age and also grew up in the South. All the details about early 60s girl/school culture brought back memories of my mom's anecdotes about her wild teen years, driving drunk to Mexico and such things but always remaining a proper Texas lady with the careful hair and always standing with one foot in front of the other. This book really captures such a cultural/historical moment!"

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Eliza C.  "Every relationship between women was just stunningly beautiful."

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William A.  "Helen is set in my time in history, and for someone who's been there and done that, the book captures it the way it was. My college girlfriend became pregnant, and somehow we found a doctor in another state and flew there for the abortion. Disaster was averted, but not misery and fear."

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Laurie R.  "The character development, the depth and clear complexity, the surprises, the history, and the humor . . . and refreshingly frank."

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Gilbert M.  "My 98-year-old mom read this book and was very impressed with the writing. She says it perfectly captured how 16-year-olds of that era talked. High praise."

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