Golden Girl

Tilly crams so many characters and incidents into this novel that it's hard to believe in, particularly since she contrives remedies for all ills, even quite serious ones. Really the setting is more interesting: Kingsport, a North Carolina seacoast town. Penny Askew, 12, frets in her family's shabby house and deplores her parents' common tastes. She envies rich Tracey Bingham who lives with her father, separated from her promiscuous mother, but indulged in luxuries by both. When the affluent Drapers move in next to the Askews, Penny has another girl to envy, Margaret, whose intellectual parents epitomize gracious living. The three sub-adolescents become companions and, egged on by Tracey, Margaret and Penny join her in shoplifting. Later Tracey is caught taking drugs and a myriad other things happen, involving practically everyone but the tourists who swell the population of Kingsport during the summer; the author has nothing to say about them. Events are related from the viewpoint of Penny, impossibly mature and perceptive for her age. (12up)