Thorpe's debut novel is The Girls From Corona del Mar.From her Q & A with Lucy Walton at Female First:
Please tell us about the characters of Mia and Lorrie Ann.Visit Rufi Thorpe's website.
Mia grows up with an alcoholic mom and a disinterested step-dad, and she feels very much like she is riding the edge and trying to keep her two younger brothers safe at the same time. What she sees in her parents is that they aren’t in control, and as a consequence, she’s desperate for control. It’s her very fear that she’ll become a bad person that actually leads her to live a very stable and “good” life. Lorrie Ann, on the other hand, comes from what seems like a very stable, church going family. She’s beautiful and smart and at ease with herself, but life really deals her a whacky hand and she’s got to figure out how to play it.
What made you want to explore friendship with this book?
My friendship with my best friend is one of the major through lines of my life. The ways in which we know each other, love each other, judge and forgive each other form much of the “plot” for me, and so I tried to write a book about a relationship like that, that was so important and yet so complicated, so intimate and yet so distant. What has amazed me is...[read on]
Writers Read: Rufi Thorpe.
The Page 69 Test: The Girls from Corona del Mar.
My Book, The Movie: The Girls from Corona del Mar.
--Marshal Zeringue