Overview

The second edition of Tales of an Inland Empire Girl tells the story of a blue-collar family who lives in the Inland Empire. John, the Cowboy white father, loves his children but drinks too much and is always chasing windmills while Judy, a Mexican mother working two jobs, struggles to lend stability and oscillates between love and anger, and their three children who try their best to survive day by day. In the beginning, it is the story of Jenny, her barely-younger twin sister Jackie, and their baby sister Annie, as they struggle to navigate the tides of their parents' troubles asea. As the years go on, and the chaos increases, the story zooms in on the growing storms, and ultimately on Jenny, as she struggles to manage and descends from stellar, book obsessed student to an angry and self-destructive punk rock girl. It's the story of a girl and a family hitting rock-bottom, but surviving it. It's a tale of redemption about a father, who in spite of it all is still loved fiercely by his children, and of a hardworking and ambitious mother who, against all odds, keeps the family together and manages to instill in Jenny a love for literature at an early age. Ultimately, it is the story of how Jenny redeems herself and somehow, manages to pick herself up, piece by piece, and slowly starts to put her life back together again.

Full Product Details

9781962702263

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Tales of an Inland Empire Girl is a searing, beautiful memoir that illuminates the struggles of parents who are beaten down by life and their arduous working-class jobs and of children who are trapped in the middle of their parents' battles. A compelling read-raw, honest, and hopeful. I wish this book existed when I was growing up. It would have been my life preserver."" -liz gonzález, author of Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds ""In her first novel, Juanita E. Mantz goes back to the old house to unshackle the ghosts that still inhabit the charred curtains and broken windows of her youth. We meet The Wonder Twins, a Wolfman Jack stand in, The Flintstones, a young Wonder Woman with tinfoil wristbands & Nancy Drew incognito via unexpected introductions into Mantz's life growing up in The Inland Empire. This is as creative as autobiography gets without veering from the hard truths herein. Maybe you saw the cartoon once, and thought it fantasy, but read this book and then firmly believe that underdogs can fly."" -Dennis Callaci, author of 100 Cassettes ""Tales of an Inland Empire Girl is deep and funny and true. A remarkable story of resilience and love told in bright prose, and written from a place of rigorous vulnerability that draws us in from the start."" -Brett Paesel, author of Los Angeles Times bestseller, Mommies Who Drink ""Mantz takes readers into a deeper journey of a childhood and coming of age filled with turbulence and tight-knit family love, and she writes with blazing grit, flashing joie de vivre, and an occasional comic overtone that feels natural coming from this self-professed punk-rock girl. This collection of stories spares no stone unturned, no watershed truth - both hard and celebratory - unexamined. And through it all, shines an anthem call of what matters most in life: the unbreakable bonds of family, and this family's enduring love for one another."" -Ruth Nolan, born in the IE and editor of No Place for a Puritan: the Literature of California's Deserts ""Tales of an Inland Empire Girl, set in the fast-growing Eastern region of Southern California and told in Mantz's smack-in-your-face honesty, lures one into the places of childhood--of first home and lasting memories. One learns to live, however awkward life might be, in a house 'the color of dirt', finding a place to call one's own in a Plastic Cheese chair, and love, even through girl fights. Through dexterous use of language, Mantz tosses her readers into a reality where a little girl finds herself in tears of frustration and shame with two left shoes, a drunken dad and screaming mom, but loves deeply anyway, and deals with her situations with twin-powered bravado and punk rock: 'I feel as if I could dance forever, ' says Mantz."" -Hồng-Mỹ Basrai, author of Behind the Red Curtain

Author Information

Juanita E. Mantz (""JEM"") is a lawyer, writer, performer, and podcaster who believes writing has the power to change the world. She graduated from UCR in 1999 with a degree in English Literature, from USC Law in 2002 and works as a mental health lawyer with The Law Offices of the Public Defender, Riverside. Juanita's first book, ""Portrait of a Deputy Public Defender, or how I became a punk rock lawyer"" (Bamboo Dart Press, Aug 2021) won gold at the 2022 International Latino Book Awards and she was awarded a 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship from the California Arts Council. She has performed on stages all over the United States and her stories have been published widely in literary journals, newspapers & anthologies. She is an alumni of VONA and Macondo. Check out her Apple podcast, ""Life of JEM: writers on writing"".

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