The Miss America Family A Novel

Pixie Kitchy was once Miss New Jersey. Now she's married to a dentist, an ex-quarterback in turtled golf pants. Her ten-year-old daughter, Mitzie, wears Bo-peep pincurls and twirls baton. Her sixteen-year-old son, Ezra, the person who knows her best, is caught up in his fling with the podiatrist's daughter. And Pixie is consumed by the past. She confides, "I was a housewife, and I became dangerous. Sometimes it's the only way possible to regain footing in the world." In this high-wire mixture of absurdity and pathos, hilarity and darkness, one American family finds out that there is no such thing as the perfect American family, and, for better or for worse, they come together and start anew.

Julianna Baggott has contributed dozens of short stories and poems in such publications as Ms. Magazine, Poetry, and Best American Poetry 2000, as well as reading her work on NPR's "Talk of the Nation." She is the author of the national bestselling novel Girl Talk and, forthcoming, The Madam, as well as a book of poems entitled This Country of Mothers. She lives in Delaware with her husband, the writer David G.W. Scott, and their three children. Visit her Web site at www.juliannabaggott.com.