My Novels
Hi! I’ve written three novels GOLDEN BOY (Atria Books), DEAD GIRLS (Picador), and FLICK (Orion) — a kind of gender triptych representing northern masculinity, intersex autonomy, and girlhood in the rural wilds. Read on for more info…
“Abigail Tarttelin is a fearless writer."
― Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
“Tarttelin is a natural storyteller.”
― Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library
“Tarttelin is the real deal.”
― Rachel Shukert, writer of Netflix series GLOW
DEAD GIRLS
Brad Listi’s The Nervous Breakdown Book Club’s November pick, 2019
Available in U.K., USA, and Canada
“Enid Blyton meets Stephen King.”
―Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, author of Starling Days and The Sleepwatcher
Feminist, bold, shocking, packed with little epiphanies."
―Shelley Harris, author of Jubilee and Vigilante
"Harriet the Spy is all grown up―and readying herself to take on the darkness of the adult world. This somehow manages to combine mystery, thriller, horror, and a lovely elegy to lost friendship . . . Completely unforgettable."
―Emma Flint, author of Other Women
“…drilling down through layers of moral and cultural norms, Dead Girls offers a strong indictment of cultural and narrative scripts that permeate our society…”
―Hackney Citizen
From the award-winning author of Golden Boy, a riveting novel that traces one girl’s journey to understand what happened to her best friend, and what it might mean to be a girl.
Eastcastle, England in the late 1990s is a peaceful, rural community where children disappear into wheat fields to play until nightfall. There are no mobile phones and no cause to worry. For families, it’s a place that allows the ultimate freedom, and this is the way eleven-year-old Thera Wilde and her friends are brought up: free.
So when Thera’s best friend goes missing, Thera assumes Billie is off on another adventure. Then detectives come to question Thera at school, and she realises the worst has happened. Thera starts to ask, what is a pervert? Why are girls particularly at risk? And why do the men around her think she’s theirs to touch? Questions the adults around her don’t want to answer.
Meanwhile, Billie has entered the realm of the dead girls; the girls that go missing and who no one finds. Does Thera really see her ghost, or is she hallucinating, mentally marked by the horror of losing her friend? The investigation continues. The rural police are slow, and overwhelmed by the unexpected nature of the case.
Urged on by what she believes to be Billie’s ghost, Thera decides to find out what happened to her friend. It’s the 90s. Girls can do anything. Thera will hunt down the killer herself.
An authentic, tender portrayal of a young girl’s grief and determination in the face of unbearable loss, as well as a smart, suspenseful exploration of how we talk to young girls about the men who would hurt them. Dead Girls is Tarttelin’s riveting, fiercely feminist follow up to critically-acclaimed LAMBDA Finalist and ALEX Award winner, Golden Boy.
“The things we tell young girls to keep them safe might be the most dangerous of all… An utterly compelling page-turner that will stay with me for a long time.”
― Samantha Baines, comedian, author, and host of The Divorce Social
"I stayed in bed till 4pm yesterday to finish the proof of Tarttelin’s DEAD GIRLS. Gripping doesn’t begin to cover it."
― Shelley Harris, author of Jubilee and Vigilante
“In refusing to be a passive and powerless child, Thera falls victim to the social and psychological consequences of the events unfolding around her. Brutal crimes against children are a staple of contemporary crime dramas, but rarely are such tales told from the perspective of the young people themselves. Dead Girls, the third novel by Hackney-based writer Abigail Tarttelin, puts the object of aggression front and centre in an insightful commentary on popular cultural tropes. Examining the social construction of childhood and the dangers of protecting children from the truth, it drills down through layers of moral and cultural norms.” — Hackney Citizen
GOLDEN BOY
Winner, American Library Association Alex Award 2014
Finalist, LAMBDA Best LGBT Debut 2014
Booklist Top Ten First Novel of 2013
School Library Journal Best Books of 2013
Featured in Vogue, O Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Heat, Stylist, and more.
Accessibility: Audiobook available. Also available in multiple languages in: UK, Australia, USA, Canada, Spain, Brazil, Holland, Turkey, Taiwan, Sweden, Italy
“a grippingly innovative” coming-of-age novel with a “radical non-binary, pro-intersex message.”
― Hida Viloria for Autostraddle
“In Golden Boy, she balances a harrowing coming of age with a deeply compassionate portrait of a family in crisis, and the result is sometimes brutal, often tender, and always compelling. This is a gripping and fully-realized novel."
― Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven
“Gritty yet humane, startlingly modern yet utterly timeless, Golden Boy hits all the deepest, biggest novelistic notes—family, identity, tragedy, hope—without the merest hint of strain. In Abigail Tarttelin's American debut, she has already proven herself to be a writer of extraordinary empathy and incredible wisdom... and she makes it look so easy.”
― Rachel Shukert, writer of Netflix series GLOW
“A riveting evocative read… Tarttelin’s prose is as compassionate as it is compelling.”
― Interview Magazine
Max is the perfect son, the perfect friend, and the perfect crush for the girls in his school. He's even really nice to his little brother. Karen, Max's mother, is determined to maintain the façade of effortless excellence she has constructed through the years, but now that the boys are getting older, she worries that the façade might soon begin to crumble. Adding to the tension, her husband Steve has chosen this moment to stand for election to Parliament. The spotlight of the media is about to encircle their lives.
The Walkers are hiding something, you see. Max is special. Max is different. Max is intersex. When an enigmatic childhood friend named Hunter steps out of his past and abuses his trust in the worst possible way, Max is forced to consider the nature of his well-kept secret. Why won't his parents talk about it? What else are they hiding from Max about his condition and from each other? The deeper Max goes, the more questions emerge about where it all leaves him and what his future holds, especially now that he's starting to fall head over heels for someone for the first time in his life. Will his friends accept him if he is no longer the Golden Boy? Will anyone ever want him--desire him--once they know? And the biggest one of all, the question he has to look inside himself to answer: Who is Max Walker, really?
Written by 25-year-old rising star Abigail Tarttelin, Golden Boy is a novel you'll read in one sitting but will never forget; at once a riveting tale of a family in crisis, a fascinating exploration of identity, and a coming-of-age story like no other.
“A dramatic, thoroughgoing investigation of the complexities of sexuality and gender.... A warmly human coming-of-age story, thanks to the fact that Max is such an appealing character. And so his desperate search for identity is gripping, emotionally engaging, and genuinely unforgettable.”
― Booklist (starred)
“Gripping and beautifully-written, Abigail Tarttelin's Golden Boy is a courageous and profound exploration of social and sexual identity and its world of manifold complexities and challenges.”
― Sahar Delijani, author of Children of the Jacaranda Tree
“...gripping...”
― Cosmopolitan
“Tarttelin writes sensitively about how an intersex child might cope with the heightened emotions of adolescence.”
― Entertainment Weekly
“...intense and fearless.... With empathy and imagination, Tarttelin describes an adolescent search for identity made monstrous by Max's uncertainty over that self-identifier most of us take for granted: am I a man or a woman?”
― Publishers Weekly
“Abigail Tarttelin has written an unforgettable novel. Golden Boy pulls you in from the very first page and holds you tight, gripping you by the throat and not letting go until it reaches its brilliant and masterful conclusion. Max Walker is the golden boy, and you will root for him, cry for him, fear for him, at times get angry at him but guaranteed you will never forget him. Not ever. The characters who make up Max's universe, from determined Karen, to distant Steve, to a deceitful Hunter, are all written in a perfect pitch. The dialogue is real, the pace is stealth bomber fast, and the plot never lets up. Tarttelin has blasted it out of the park in her first at bat here in the States. She has written a novel that goes beyond the page and reaches into a reader's heart and stays there, never to leave, never to be forgotten. Golden Boy is that good of a novel, and Tarttelin is that gifted of a writer. This book simply deserves to be read and treasured.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Sleepers and Wolf
“Golden Boy is at once meditative and swift, a coming-of-age tale about the difficulties of growing up amid shame and secrets and success. Abigail Tarttelin writes with a sharp-eyed grace in this fascinating, heartfelt gem of a novel.”
― Dean Bakopoulos, author of My American Unhappiness
“Golden Boy is terrific. A poignant, brave and important book.”
― S.J. Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep
FLICK
“authentic and compelling… a slow-burn cult classic”
― GQ Magazine
From the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of Golden Boy comes Abigail Tarttelin's debut novel, written when she was just nineteen and never before published in America, a modern-day Romeo and Juliet about sex, love, and growing up.
My name is Flick and these are my images of my disconnected life, my forgettable weeks and unforgettable weekends. I am one of the disaffected youth.
Marooned by a lack of education (and lack of anything better to do), Will Flicker, a.k.a. "Flick," spends most days pondering the artistry behind being a stoner, whether Pepsi is better than Coke, and how best to get clear of his tiny, one-horse suburb. But Flick senses there’s something else out there waiting for him, and the sign comes in the form of the new girl in town—a confident, unconventionally beautiful girl named Rainbow. As their relationship develops, Flick finds himself torn between the twisted loyalty he feels to his old life and the pull of freedom that Rainbow represents.
The story unfolds in a small factory town in northern England, where bleak and sometimes treacherous circumstances make the taste of a love affair even sweeter. Told with humor and raw honesty, in a voice "both authentic and compelling" (GQ, UK), Flick captures an unforgettable moment in the life of a young man on the verge.