Emma Cline

Cline was twenty-five when The Girls sold in a much-reported auction: a fourteen-year-old drawn toward a Manson-like commune in 1969 California, narrated by the woman she later became. Daddy is the story collection that followed, ten pieces about men with power and the people managing them, mostly caught in the moment just before or just after something breaks. Her former partner sued over the manuscript of the first novel and she countersued; the substantive claims against her were dismissed. Sonoma County was home, one of seven children, and writes in a manner critics keep calling precise, which is another way of saying she cuts.