Overview

Skid Dogs is araw and riveting debut memoir about coming of age during the casual oppression of '90s rape culture and the passionate tumult of teenage friendships. ""I can't remember the last time I read a book so brave. Maybe never."" -Ani DiFranco ""I fell hard for the scrappy, funny, honest, resilient young heroine of Skid Dogs, and the wise narrator who mediates her story-an essential tale of girlhood survival."" -Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award ""Everyone knows, a girl has to be killed before she's taken seriously; anything less is just called growing up."" In 1991, Emelia Symington-Fedy stumbled upon a tight-knit group of girls hanging out on the secluded railroad tracks intersecting her small rural town-and became ""best friends"" with them overnight in the way only fifteen-year-olds can. Unsupervised and wild, the girls navigated teenage friendship dynamics, toyed with adult vices, and explored their growing sexuality. Two decades later an eighteen-year-old girl is murdered on Halloween on the same tracks, and Symington-Fedy returns to her hometown to stay with her mother, who is fearful of a murderer at large. The victim was simply taking a shortcut to her friend's house-just like Emelia's gang had done so many times in their day. While the media fixates on why the girl dared to be alone on the tracks, Symington-Fedy slowly comes to terms with the mistreatment of her own teenage body and the twenty years of silence between her former friends. Combining the intimacy of memoir with the gripping narrative of true crime, Symington-Fedy offers a bold and often darkly humorous first-hand account of nineties rape culture, the sexual coercion that still permeates girlhood, and the subtle ways that misogyny shows up daily.

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9781771623643

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Reviews

“[R]iveting right up until the last page.” —Quill & Quire “An exquisitely written account of the brutality of coming of age, Skid Dogs dives into the lives of a group of small-town teenage girls. A denunciation of the patriarchy, at its core Skid Dogs celebrates female friendships and mother/daughter relationships in all their complicated glory. Fuelled by palpable grief and rage, this moving, hilarious, gripping memory piece wraps the dual themes of loss of innocence and loss of sanctuary around each other, ultimately asking: who is the enemy?” —Carmen Aguirre, actor, playwright and author of Mexican Hooker #1 and My Other Roles Since the Revolution “In this raw and vulnerable memoir, Emelia Symington-Fedy adopts her reader into a group of girls, vicious and protective as a pack of dogs, as they navigate a world where bruises are currency, gossip brings celebrity and every boy has the power to smear a girl’s radiance. Skid Dogs is a visceral and shameless peak under the hemline of girlhood.” —Susan Sanford Blades, author of Fake It So Real “This book is real life and that’s what makes it haunting: it’s laughing off rape because that’s what’s expected of you, it’s forever friendships that keep you afloat. Beautifully written and bravely told, this riveting, raucous memoir is the Stand By Me for girls we’ve all been waiting for.” —Aislinn Hunter, author of The Certainties

Author Information

Emelia Symington-Fedy grew up in Armstrong, BC. She has worked as an essayist, storyteller and documentary producer for CBC Radio and is the co-artistic director of The Chop Theatre. She is the creator of the popular blog and radio show that became an audiobook, Trying to Be Good: The Healing Powers of Lying, Cheating, Stealing, and Drugs (Author's Republic, 2017). After living an urban life for many years, Symington-Fedy and her family are now enjoying life back in Armstrong, on their rural property near a lake.

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