The narrator of Split Tooth is, in many ways, an ordinary teenage girl. She cares about makeup and getting her hair just right; she looks at boys, wants them to like her, is frightened of the feelings this attraction evokes.
It’s the 1970s – no one has a phone, there’s not much television, boredom and excitement alike are self-generated in a community of young people. But the environment the narrator inhabits is not one most readers will know. “It’s a dusty summer night in the High Arctic. The sun is shining brightly overhead. The sun always brings life and mischief, serenity and visions. It’s two o’clock in the morning and I’ve shrugged off my curfew. There will be hell to pay when I get home and my father’s thunderous footsteps shake the house with a blazing ire that only he can conjure.”
