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  • $19.95 | $14.96 | 25% off

    ISBN: 9781772010404 | Paperback

    240 pages | Pub. Date: 20160916
    8.5 W × 5.5 H × .75 D inches
    Backlist | Fiction | Bisac: FIC019000
    Rights: WORLD

    Or find U Girl in your local bookstore

Award-winning author Meredith Quartermain’s second novel and seventh book, U Girl, is a coming-of-age story set in Vancouver in 1972, a city crossed between love-in hip and forest-corp square.

Frances Nelson escapes her small-town background to attend first-year university in the big city. “You’ve got to find the great love,” her new friend Dagmar tells her. But what makes it love instead of sex? And what kind of love bonds friends? She gleans surprising answers from Jack, a construction worker, Dwight, a mechanic and dope peddler, Carla, a bar waitress who’s seen better days, and her English professor and sailing friend, Nigel.


U Girl blurs the line between fiction and reality as Frances begins to write a novel about the people she comes to know. With seamless metafictional play and an engagement with place that has come to be Quartermain’s definitive style, U Girl tells the story of a woman’s struggle to be taken seriously – to be equal to men despite her sexual attraction to them, and to dislodge accepted narratives of gender and class in the institution of the university during the “free love” era. In this sprawling and perceptive novel, Quartermain takes us through sexual experimentation, drugs, jobs, meditating on Wreck Beach, sailing up through Desolation Sound, and studying at the University of British Columbia.

U Girl is a story that pays homage to local haunts and literary influences in equal measure. Quartermain brings to Canadian literature a wholesome and vital female perspective in this long-awaited bildungsroman.


“A whimsical pleasure to read, and at times deeply felt and affecting … it will amuse and tease anyone who has ever been young, poor and confused about life. Which must be just about everyone.”
Vancouver Sun & Calgary Herald

By Meredith Quartermain

Meredith Quartermain is celebrated across Canada for her depictions of places and their historical hauntings. Vancouver Walking (NeWest, 2005) won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Nightmarker (NeWest, 2008) was a finalist for the City of Vancouver Book Award, and Recipes from the Red Planet (BookThug, 2010), her book of flash fiction, was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.

Read more about Meredith Quartermain


news | 2016-10-24
Our Fall 2016 books are launched!

…1970s Vancouver in Meredith Quartermain’s novel, U Girl, Talon was honoured to launch seven all-star … Les Smith Meredith Quartermain reads from U Girl, a coming-of-age novel set in Vancouver in 1972. …


news | 2016-10-19
Tomorrow: Talon’s big fall launch!

…Rad Friendly Fire by Danielle LaFrance Prose! U Girl by Meredith Quartermain (a novel) The Days: …


news | 2016-09-19
U Girl has arrived!

…Meredith Quartermain’s new novel has arrived! U Girl tells the meta-fictional, feminist story of … British Columbia’s student newspaper, raved about U Girl: Quartermain has truly outdone herself this time. … Throughout September, students who order U Girl will get 20% off! (Regular price: $19.95; student … the student special, and we’ll get your copy of U Girl in the mail the very next day! …


news | 2016-08-31
U Girl on the radio

…Vancouver, British Columbia, about her new novel U Girl . Set in Vancouver in the early 1970s, U Girl … can listen online . You’ll hear a reading from U Girl as well as Quartermain’s thoughts on writing, … of Place, for a chance to win yourself a copy of U Girl! There will be a giveaway in mid-September …) …


news | 2016-08-22
Another great review of U Girl

…of Meredith Quartermain’s forthcoming novel, U Girl . Read the review online in the Sun or in the … Madeleines, and for that we should thank her. U Girl will be available in September for $19.95. …


news | 2016-08-12
The first review is in: Ubyssey loves U Girl

…review of Meredith Quartermain’s new novel, U Girl (which is set at UBC). Read the full review by … they dive into Quartermain’s latest masterpiece. U Girl will be available in September. Pre-order your … copy of U Girl today! …


news | 2016-07-04
Fall 2016 previews!

…excited about Meredith Quartermain’s new novel, U Girl , a coming-of-age story set in Vancouver in 1972, … studying at the University of British Columbia. U Girl pays homage to local haunts and literary …