![\"Growing](\"https:\/\/melissanewman.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Growing-Up-Wilder-21.jpg\")
<\/a>BARBOURVILLE, KY \u2014 Narrated by foul-mouthed, smart-aleck eight year old Dancy Wilder, Melissa Newman\u2019s third novel Growing Up Wilder is a comical yet pensive look inside a single-parent household during the post-war, post hippie decade of the 1970s.<\/p>\nNewman\u2019s main characters in this work of literary fiction, Dancy and her older sister Marla, are somehow managing to survive childhood and then teenage life in spite of their father\u2019s crazy romantic encounters \u2014 a spiritualistic grass-smoking hippie, a double-D cup kleptomaniac known over the CB airwaves as Hot Ginger, an olive-skinned Greek goddess, and Dancy\u2019s biker chick of a mom who pops in and out of the Wilder household at will.<\/p>\n
Dancy and Marla’s father, Everett is raising the girls alone. A perpetual bachelor and successful lady\u2019s man, Everett can have just about any woman he wants. Problem is he wants them all\u2014and likes them all a little crazy.<\/p>\n
The writing and subject matter in Growing Up Wilder run a little off the usual path of a Melissa Newman novel. Both Newman\u2019s previous works, Sister Blackberry (2009 Whiskey Creek Press) and House of Cleaving (2011 Whiskey Creek Press), tilt more toward drama and mystery than the writer\u2019s latest work. \u00a0The \u201cWilder Book,\u201d however, as Newman refers to it, captures that same drama and mystery but shrouds itself in comedic interludes.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing Up Wilder will make you laugh and cry out loud in the same moment,\u201d Newman said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly the reaction I had countless times as I was writing it. These girls (Dancy and Marla Wilder) make you want to squeeze them up in a big hug and protect them from their crazy parents but you also want to bust their little butts for some of the shenanigans they pull.\u201d<\/p>\n
The overarching theme of Newman\u2019s latest creation is surviving in a single parent household. While some might say, \u201cThat\u2019s just not funny,\u201d Newman disagrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrowing Up Wilder is an honest look at real life without being preachy, judgmental or playing the blame game,\u201d Newman said. \u201cAsk just about anyone if their childhood upbringing was dysfunctional and the answer is a resounding \u201cyes.\u201d Life is messy, chaotic and bumpy with a lot of mistakes made along the way. We can all sit around feeling sorry for ourselves or we can choose to see the humor in our everyday existence.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, what\u2019s the secret? Newman\u2019s novels always have a family secret, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course there\u2019s a secret,\u201d Newman quipped. \u201cMomma Lou has a secret profession that has been keeping the Wilder household in the black for years. Our little Dancy spends years trying to uncover it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newman said she likes the quote from one of the early reviewers of Growing Up Wilder \u2014 \u201cThese aren\u2019t the Wilders you remember from the Prairie but you\u2019ll love them just as much,\u201d said Kathleen Papajohn, author of Maligned, another Martin Sisters Publishing novelist.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that line just about sums it up,\u201d Newman said, after she read Papajohn\u2019s quote aloud.<\/p>\n
Growing Up Wilder will make its debut at Writer\u2019s Row during the Redbud Festival on April 13 (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in Robsion Arena \u2013 Union College\u2019s gymnasium). Newman said this was a happy accident that her novel will be unofficially launched in Barbourville.<\/p>\n
\u201cNormally, the first venue is at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington,\u201d Newman said. \u201cLuckily the timing of the book\u2019s release worked in our favor and now my neighbors and friends will be the first to get their hands on my new book.\u201d<\/p>\n
Newman is a graduate of Corbin High School and holds both a Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Arts degree from Union College. She is a board member for the Governor\u2019s Kentucky Commission on Women and president of Kentucky Harvest Southeast. She lives in Barbourville with her husband Frank and teaches in the department of communication at Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond campus.<\/p>\n
Newman will be hosting several book events during the upcoming months, including the official book launch at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington (date to be announced). To learn more about Newman\u2019s work and to find out more about appearances visit www.melissanewman.net<\/p>\n
Print and e-versions of Growing Up Wilder can be found at www.amazon.com<\/a><\/span>, www.booksamillion.com<\/a>, www.powells.com<\/a> and www.barnesandnoble.com<\/a> and wherever books and e-books are sold.<\/p>\n