HIGH PRAISE FOR
everything grows
BY AIMEE HERMAN
A SWEET AND moving read about a young person growing up, coming out, and trying to find the right words to speak their truth. The awesome soundtrack is a bonus.
EASY VEGAN
EVERYTHING GROWS WILL grow inside you like a revelation, slowly unfolding to a shape that is vulnerable, raw and beautifully alive. . . . There’s tender wisdom and a wonderfully rendered young voice that anyone can recognize as human and real—all against a backdrop of riot grrrl rebellion. Herman writes a real story, teaching everyone a little about life as lived—genuinely and in discovery.
MAX WOLF VALERIO, author, The Testosterone Files; The Criminal: The Invisibility of Parallel Forces
EVERYTHING GROWS IS haunting. It touches the darkness of bullying and suicide, yet brims with hope. Aimee Herman’s tender debut novel is an achingly real exploration of grief, self-discovery, forgiveness, and love.
MEAGAN BROTHERS, author, Weird Girl and What’s His Name
SET IN THE decade of grunge rock and ill-advised do-it-yourself body piercings, Aimee Herman’s Everything Grows chronicles a sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes funny journey to acceptance, both of self and others. Eleanor Fromme is a witty, kind, and conflicted narrator who could teach many people in our nation a lot about empathy.
JULIA WATTS, author, Quiver
EVERYTHING GROWS IS a work of healing. It describes coming out as a lifelong process of discovery. Friendship, disfunction, parenting good and bad, and learning to love are unspooled here against a background of exquisite caring. It is the rare read that leaves one a wiser person.
STEVEN TAYLOR, author, False Prophet: Fieldnotes from the Punk Underground; editor, Don’t Hide the Madness: William S. Burroughs in Conversation with Allen Ginsberg
everything grows
a novel
Aimee Herman
THREE ROOMS PRESS
New York, NY
Everything Grows
BY Aimee Herman
© 2019 by Aimee Herman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. For permissions, please write to address below or email [email protected]. Any members of education institutions wishing to photocopy or electronically reproduce part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Three Rooms Press, 561 Hudson Street, #33, New York, NY 10014.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imaginations or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-941110-68-3 (trade paperback original)
ISBN 978-1-941110-69-0 (Epub)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018962451
TRP-072
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
BISAC category code
YAF031000 YOUNG ADULT FICTION / LGBT
YAF037000 YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Loners & Outcasts
YAF058020 YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Bullying
YAF016000 YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Epistolary (Letters & Diaries)
First edition
COVER DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION:
Victoria Black: www.thevictoriablack.com
BOOK DESIGN:
KG Design International: www.katgeorges.com
DISTRIBUTED BY:
PGW/Ingram: www.pgw.com
Three Rooms Press
New York, NY
“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
—Zora Neale Hurston
For Romy
And for Andrew
Contents
before
DEAR ELINORE,
MY MOM USED TO READ TO ME WHEN I COULDN’T FALL ASLEEP. IT WAS ALWAYS THE GIVING TREE, I INSISTED. THE PICTURES WEREN’T ANYTHING SPECIAL. I LIKED HOW SAD THEY WERE. KID BOOKS ARE ALWAYS SO HAPPILY EVER AFTER, YOU KNOW? AND LIFE IS JUST NOT LIKE THAT. THAT BOY JUST KEEPS TAKING AND TAKING FROM THE TREE UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. HE CARVES INTO IT, TAKES ITS BRANCHES, ITS APPLES, LEAVING JUST A STUMP. WHEN I WAS A KID, I THOUGHT ABOUT HOW LUCKY THIS BOY WAS TO HAVE A TREE AS HIS BEST FRIEND, BUT WHAT A MORON I WAS TO THINK THAT. THE BOY NEVER GAVE ANYTHING TO THIS TREE. THE BOY NEVER ASKED IT WHAT IT WANTED. NOW I HATE THIS BOOK BECAUSE IT REMINDS ME OF HOW BLIND WE ARE. EVERYONE JUST TAKES. NO ONE REALLY KNOWS ME AND NO ONE CARES TO. MY PARENTS THEY HAVE NO IDEA.
YOU PROBABLY READ THIS BOOK A MILLION TIMES, OR AT LEAST KNOW IT. I’VE SEEN YOU IN THE HALLWAYS WITH YOUR NOSE IN SOME BOOK—PROBABLY FOR PLEASURE AND NOT BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO, YOU’RE LIKE THAT. WE’VE GOT A WEEPING WILLOW IN OUR BACKYARD. YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS? YOU PROBABLY DO. I THOUGHT THEY ACTUALLY CRIED LIKE TEARS ON THEIR LEAVES SORT OF THING. THEY LOOK LIKE THEY’RE WEEPING, ALL HUNCHED OVER LIKE THEY FOUND OUT SOME BAD NEWS AND CAN’T SEEM TO RECOVER.
I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS ONE DAY ON THE BUS RIDE HOME FROM SCHOOL. FOR MONTHS, I’VE BEEN COLLECTING WAYS TO DO IT. THERE IS A TREE BY THE RAVINE NEAR MY HOUSE. IT’S REALLY BEUTIFUL BEAUTIFUL AND MAYBE I’VE ALWAYS KIND OF KNOWN THAT WAS THE ONE.
1993
THE STORY OF MY FIRST HAIRCUT is legendary. Or at least it is in my family. It has circulated over Thanksgiving meals, in synagogue after prayer time is over and all that is left are slightly stale cookies to munch on during Oneg, and even when my grandfather was slowly dying in the hospital.
It was just after my third birthday. My thick, curly hair had gathered into more knots than a brush could untangle, so Dad grabbed the scissors from the coupon