Laurie Fox

Soon to be a major motion picture, The Lost Girls is the story of a now grown-up Wendy and her ties to Peter Pan, in a novelized retelling of the original fairy tale. In the practical world, "Peter Pan" is a syndrome referring to adult men unwilling to grow up. But what of the women who love them? Is there a "Wendy" syndrome? Extrapolating from the JM Barrie children's story, Laurie Fox asked herself what Wendy Darling's life might have been like--before, after, and during her visit to Neverland? The answer is The Lost Girls, a brilliant and fantastical investigation into four generations of women who loved Pan. In Fox's imagination, Wendy is but the latest in a long line of Darling women whose storytelling power, appetite for fantasy, and belief in magic allow them brief interludes under the light of the legendary young hero. While Peter never grows old, the Darling women do--each with the knowledge she will bear a daughter who will inevitably entertain Peter Pan and his lost tribe. Flirting on the line of madness, our protagonist Wendy cannot take the Darling calling so lightly. Fox investigates Wendy's dilemma with the skill of a psychologist, examining the warring impulses within Wendy--her yearnings for freedom and security, fantasy and reality. It is an investigation that will resonate with women young and old.

A Novel

The Lost Girls

"I was born into a mentally ill family. My sister was the officially crazy one, but really we were all nuts." So begins My Sister from the Black Lagoon, Laurie Fox's incandescent novel of growing up absurd. Lorna Person's tale is wrested from the shadows cast by her sister, Lonnie, whose rages command the full attention of her parents. Their San Fernando Valley household is off-key and out of kilter, a place where Lonnie sees evil in the morning toast and runs into the Burbank hills to join the animals that seem more like her kin. Lorna, on the other hand, is an acutely sensitive girl who can't relate to Barbie. "Could Barbie feel sorrow? Could Barbie understand what it's like to be plump, lonely, Jewish?" My Sister from the Black Lagoon is a wisecracked bell jar, a heartbreaking study of sane and crazy. Laurie Fox's delightful voice is knowing yet wide-eyed, lyrical, and witty.

A Novel of My Life

My Sister from the Black Lagoon

Wendy has long heard the family legend -- madness strikes the Darling women at a certain age, traditionally after romance visits in the form of an overgrown boy. The Darling girl will fall in love, the boy will desert, and the girl is left on her heels, heartbroken and flirting ever after with lunacy's lure. Wendy knows she should be grateful for her childhood adventure, but instead she finds herself adrift; resenting the heartache-turned-eccentricity of her mother; envious of the oddball antics of her Great-Nana; and consumed by the mystery of her grandmother Jane, whose disappearance following her own youthful romance remains unsolved. When Wendy falls in love with Freeman, an exuberant and irreverent man-child himself, she finds herself perpetuating the pattern she thought she had missed. And then along comes her daughter, Berry, the precocious but sullen child with the eyes of a sage. When it is Berry's time to go off to The Neverland, Wendy, like so many mothers before her, questions who she has become. Is she "barking mad"? Is Berry? Wendy's journey to self-realization takes flight from the themes suggested in the classic novel Peter Pan. Fox's dazzling prose and elegant insights into love and loss make this story universal; the characters and their heartache make this novel deeply personal. The Lost Girls contemplates the contradictory human yearnings for freedom and safety, flight and stability in a moving and ultimately uplifting story of motherhood, love, and reenchantment that speaks to women of all ages.

Laurie Fox

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