By Christine Mangan
To Judy Doenges, ordinary people are the cornerstone of fiction. An idea that is represented in her first novel, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, addresses real-life, everyday issues as it follows the story of Robin Simonsen, a young girl growing up in the Chicago suburbs in the 1960s and '70s. Set in the fictional town of Lilac, Ill.—a composite of several suburbs, including Elmhurst, where Doenges herself grew up—Robin must deal with her junky father, her flamboyant grandmother and a whole host of oddball characters as she struggles to come to terms with a variety of issues, including her sexuality.
'She's a strong character,' Doenges explained of her protagonist, one that Doenges wishes she had been more like growing up. 'I identify with the desire to have been like her as a child,' she said. 'In that sense, I'm closest to her. I care about her the most.'
A student of both creative writing and philosophy, Doenges said that her days as a philosophy major still play an important role in her writing. 'My fiction often starts with an abstraction,' she explained. Using the character of Robin, along with her family and friends, Doenges explores the many different forms desire can take. In certain characters, desire surfaces in the form of addiction, such as drugs and alcohol, while others struggle with romantic and sexual desire and several wrestle with the constraints of class.
However, desire is not the only theme that Doenges tackles in her first novel. With the use of setting, she also introduces the topics of class and race. 'There was a lot of class division when I was growing up,' she said. This is represented in the town of Lilac, where there are people who are poor, working class, middle-class and millionaires. 'I was interested in making clear that suburbs are not uniform in class,' Doenges explained.
The issue of race is introduced into her novel by the arrival of Lilac's only African-American family, including their teen son, Freddie, whom the protagonist soon befriends. Freddie, like Robin, is also dealing with the issue of his sexuality. 'When I was growing up, Elmhurst was exclusively white,' Doenges said. 'I wanted to explore what happens when African Americans move to an exclusively white town. I was interested in the folly of white people as they try to have relationships with people of color.'
Writing is something that Doenges has been passionate about since she was a child. 'I remember as early as grade school writing stories and feeling like that's what I was made to do,' she said. Now an Assistant Professor of English at Colorado State University, Doenges names Flannery O'Conner and Saul Bellow as authors that she has deep admiration for.
In addition to her first novel, Doenges has also published a short fiction collection, What She Left Me, and is currently at work on her second novel.
Doenges will be reading from her novel, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, at Women and Children First Bookstore, June 6 at 7 p.m.
