Hick, by Andrea Portes, is an extremely-well written novel whose clever dialogue is both hilarious and pathetic. To say the language is crude yet honest, both appropriate and inappropriate, for 13-year-old Luli McMullen, who grew up within the uglier side of human existence, is an understatement. Author Portes paints Luli’s raw, not-so-innocent spirit perfectly - with words on one page to make a reader repelled by the precocious little brat, but then on the very next page making the reader worried about her emotional heartaches and well-being.
Luli kinda just grew up in a small ramshackle home in rural Nebraska with neither parent as any hint of a role model. Her cheating mother, Tammy, has little concern for Luli’s welfare. Tammy’s only whim is to run off with any man who offers sexual favors and/or a few bucks. Luli’s father, a wasted man who never worked a day in his life, puts up with his wife’s unfaithfulness because he is usually too intoxicated to care. Plus, he often has dames of his own.
Yet throughout the book, Luli expresses real feelings for both parents. She comically describes her father: "If you threw Elvis and a scarecrow in a blender, topped the whole thing off with Seagram’s 7 and pressed dice, you would make my dad."
Luli takes her mother's $200 and leaves her ramshackle home for good, determined to reach Las Vegas where she plans on finding a “sugar-daddy” to keep her and make her rich. Creepy Eddie Kreezer offers her a ride in his truck. Although she is attracted to him physically, she describes him hilariously:
When I say he’s crooked, I don’t mean it in any sort of poetic sense. I mean he’s crooked. Literally. Like his body looks like an italic. He veers to the left ... He’s like some kind of daddy-long-legs spindling behind the wheel.
Eventually, even Eddie Kreezer is no match for Luli. Her nasty, fiery-mouthed invectives and raging hormones cause them to separate. Luli meets gorgeous Glenda who appears rich and influential, but as Luli finds out, is nothing more than a glamorous drifting thief, stealing whatever and whenever she can. She advises Luli about her philosophy of life: "You don’t want to be squeezed in between ... a bunch of limp city folk that couldn’t figure out how to pour whiskey out of a boot with directions on the heel."
She convinces Luli to “seizure” on the floor of an elderly store owner while she grabs whatever cash is in the till. Luli is so good at her role that the elderly, terrified store owner has a stroke trying to lift her. He topples over pinning her to the floorboards until Glenda unceremoniously rolls him off. Glenda takes the cash but complains: "Not exactly what I had in mind kid. Nice work. Now we’re murderers."
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