A Tomboy’s Tribulations

Piper’s Someday, by Ruth Perkinson

Reviewed by Terri L. Jones

Harper Lee pulled it off with Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird; Carson McCullers’ Frankie won readers over in The Member of the Wedding; and in Rubyfruit Jungle, Rita Mae Brown helped you get to know - and like - the young Molly Bolt. But it’s not easy writing from the perspective of a child. Not only must you come up with convincing dialogue, but you’re also forced to resurrect those unadulterated thought processes that you long ago outgrew. Now, Richmond author Ruth Perkinson has created a character reminiscent of—and as believably and likeably portrayed—as the classic literary tomboys before her, in her new novel, Piper’s Someday.

Ruth, who published her first book, Vera’s Still Point, just a year ago, called upon her years of teaching and her young nephews in creating 12-year-old spitfire Piper Leigh Cliff, who spends her time swimming, skateboarding, and smoking in her fort in the woods. But this young heroine, whose heart is riddled like Swiss cheese from the tragic death of her entire family, was molded primarily from the author’s own troubled childhood. When Ruth was 10 years old, her alcoholic father left the family, and for many years, Ruth says her life was a “deep, dark lonely well.”

“I tried to remember how I was thinking those things out. How could I get away from this situation that was so horrible, and what can I set my sights on?” she says, explaining how she used her experiences as grist for her mill. “I remember thinking, ‘If I can get to the age of 18, I’ll be legal and I can get away from all this.’” Likewise, throughout the book, Piper gets through each day by focusing on her 18th birthday when she can move to her own place, make hotdogs for breakfast and work at the Curbside Café.

Central to the story - like Ruth’s own life - is a dog. “Someday,” so named because Piper’s mom had promised the kids they could have a dog “someday,” is all Piper has left after losing her family and going to live with her alcoholic grandfather. Ruth wrote this book in 10 short weeks after the death of her own beloved dog Scout. But she says Someday, a funky-pawed, rabbit-eared pooch, was modeled after her current dog River, who is able-bodied (she’s a certified therapy dog) but also adorably rabbit-eared.

If it weren’t so utterly heart-rending at its core, Piper’s Someday could almost be described as a comic novel, with one-liners typical of unintentional adolescent humor. When Piper’s grandfather warns her about the two women who have just moved in a few doors down, saying that “homos” have caused every natural disaster, including tsunami, nine-eleven, Katrina and Iraq, Piper thinks to herself, “I don’t know who Sue Namy was.” And when these same neighbors, who befriend her, ask where her grandma is, she answers “On the mantle.” You can practically hear the crash of the high hat.

In this book, Piper goes through more than any 12-year-old should ever have to. But just as Ruth herself went through a journey and found her way back to a relationship with her father, she leads Piper back to a place where she is loved and in the process, proves to her that this destination isn’t always what you were expecting.