A beguiling book debuts for the second time

Bloated. Self-indulgent. Cliched. These are the common traps of self-published books, those that never make it into the hands of a gimlet-eyed editor, someone willing to sacrifice pretty

prose for the sake of the overall work. In 2003, Hilary Thayer Hamann published her novel _Anthropology of an American Girl_ through her own press. It became something of a sleeper success,

and seven years later, it is now being reprinted by the Random House imprint Spiegel & Grau. Clocking in at 624 pages and covering a few years in the life of teenager Eveline Auerbach in

closeup detail, it suffers from all of the problems that can befall the self-published. And yet there is something so beguiling, so charming about the book. At first you might reject it

like a sugary pop song, but you will find yourself singing along a few days later. _Anthropology_ is so very, very long, and yet it continues to beckon after you think you've finished

with it. It becomes ensnared in that _Twilight_-esque trap of having every male character inexplicably and compulsively in love with its heroine, and yet her reveries on teenage love and

lust are so authentic, you don't lose your patience. It's Eveline's voice -- equal parts pretentious and poetic, bratty and poignant, wise and naive -- that saves the book. It

captures exactly the thought processes of an introspective teenage girl. Her worldview is sharp and dead-on. On seeing her absent father at graduation: "It depressed me somewhat to be

faced with my DNA like that." On femininity: "Girls are truly game as soldiers, with the brave things they do to their bodies and the harsh conditions they are able to

tolerate." On being a teenage girl: "When you're fourteen, pretty much everything puts you in a difficult predicament." Evie doesn't do much -- she joins drama club,

she falls in love, she outgrows high school friends -- but her dry wit and keen sense of observation make her a fine companion. Likewise, _Anthropology_ isn't a masterpiece, but it is

addictive reading. Hamann inhabits the skin of a teenage girl so accurately, so effortlessly, it's a bit of a relief she has found her way into the book world. (Six-hundred-page epics

about the inner lives of teenage girls are not generally considered marketable, unless there's a vampire involved.) If Hamann can accomplish this on her own, it'll be amazing to

see what she can do with a little help. Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.