Sad Girl Novel

A young woman tries to figure out if she’s the best (a creative genius) or if she’s maybe just the worst (completely delusional).

I’d be in heaven but on the edge of a deeper misery than ever, I’d be on top of the world and then they’d ask me, Did you make the right choice Kim? Are you currently, still, making the right choices Kimberly Mueller?

Over the course of a year in Berlin, an aspiring novelist, Kim, and her historian best friend, Bel, confront their twin acts of creation.

Kim is becoming a writer, and is determined to write a bestseller. She's been convinced of this idea by Matthew, an American literary agent who is as emotionally unavailable as he is handsome (very). Kim lives in her own carefully constructed reality, which her imagination is constantly pumping full of hot air. As she attempts to buoy herself using other people for external motivation, they poke holes in her fantasies, leading her to wonder if she’s going to come crashing down or somehow stay afloat.

Meanwhile, Bel is becoming a mother, and gives birth, certain it will fulfil her in ways her career does not seem to. Kim and Bel support and deceive each other as only the best of friends can.

In the face of probable failure, how do we convince ourselves to try and become something anyway? And how do we live with the choices we make?

About the Author

Pip Finkemeyer's fiction has been listed for the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize, the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers, the Disquiet Literary Prize and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She co-founded the Berlin-based zine Nothing To See Here , and completed a Masters in Publishing and Editing at RMIT. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne and Sad Girl Novel is her first novel.