Dead Girls (book)

A woman is caught between two men titled this boy, and that boy. That boy is an adventurous photographer who hopes to aid humanity. The woman and that boy correspond through email messages and phone calls. However, that boy doesn’t write often. This boy is a rich man, and seems to care for the woman, buying her expensive gifts and speaking of love. He ends up getting her pregnant, but she decides to have an abortion. They end up breaking up.[4]

Sally, a breast cancer survivor and hand model, explores her relationship with her dying father. Lee has stated that this story is rooted in the Electra myth and observes the taboo subject of sexual tension between a father and daughter.[5] The story is divided into the following sections: Sally's eyes, Sally's hands, Sally's breasts, Sally's teeth, Sally's vagina, Sally's ears, Sally's lips, Sally's feet, and Sally's bones.[4]

Three teenagers—Jess, Charlie, and Kyle—spend Valentine's Day together at Kyle's house. Jess receives a pair of hoop earrings from Charlie as a Valentine's Day instead of a locket, like she had asked for, and she pierces her ears in the upstairs washroom with ice and a sewing needle. Meanwhile, Charlie and Kyle are downstairs talking about the way Jess was flirting with Kyle. The two then make a transaction; Kyle will hand over $50 for Jess to have sex with him. As the night progresses, the three get increasingly drunk, culminating in Jess sleeping with Kyle. Charlie and Jess then leave Kyle's house. The two get into a verbal argument which escalates to physical assault.

This story is told from the eyes of a mother who is desperate to find her missing sex worker daughter named Clare. This desperation is heightened by the discovery of a serial killer, and a number of human remains in a retired dentist's backyard. During this time, the woman and her husband are in the process of selling their house, the one Clare grew up in. This, along with her daughter's disappearance, causes her relationship with her husband to become tense. It becomes clear that the mother is unwilling to let go of the image of an innocent Clare, or move on. Clare however, has a strong desire for distance from her family. Although Clare is never found, the mother is able to feel closer to her daughter by walking in the Downtown Eastside and experiencing things the way her daughter does.[4]

Two women, Jemma and Annie, go on a kind of road trip in an attempt to escape the trouble in their lives. The story begins with the death of a dog; Jemma's husband, Marcus, had purchased the dog in an attempt to please his family. After it is run over however, Jemma is the one who must bury it. She starts driving to escape the realities of her divorce with Marcus, who is planning take their children away to Ontario. While she cries to Annie, Jemma admits that Marcus "is the better parent."[6] Annie purposefully chose an ugly man to date in the hopes that this relationship would be more successful. Yet, she believes her boyfriend is planning to break up with her.

As a favour for her friend Janet, a drug-addicted nurse supervises a high-school dance-a-thon that aims to raise money for a drug awareness program. The story follows the nurse throughout the night: she greets the students’ parents, imagines an affair with Janet's husband, Paul, and she has an affair with one of the students. Nancy Lee has stated that she conducted research on pharmaceutical addiction in the medical profession in order to inform the story, and that the drug-addicted nurse is an example of how people often spend their lives trying to hide something.[2]

Adele is living on the streets and is running quickly out of money. She wakes up one morning outside of a tattoo parlor and is let inside by the owner, Rollie. He feeds her and lets her take a shower. From there on, the story follows their relationship as she starts living with him, spending her days lounging in the store with the customers and spending her nights either sleeping with Rollie, or taking his bed while he sleeps elsewhere. Their sexual relationship is difficult and after one failed attempt at intercourse, they awkwardly avoid further attempts despite Rollie still having desires for Adele.

Every week, the both of them goes to visit Rollie's mother, who lives alone and is mourning the death of her husband. She and Rollie do not get along very well, but Adele pities her. Towards the end of the story, Rollie's mother gives him a ring, thinking that he might ask Adele to marry him. On his way back to the store, Rollie looks into the window and finds Adele having sex with a customer that he had pushed towards her.

Two sisters in high-school, Grace and Nita, are exposed to the same temptations by a stranger named Kevin. The two sisters make opposing decisions; Nita ends up running away from home with Kevin. The two move to Vancouver, where Nita's life becomes increasingly difficult as she falls into drugs and is constantly in the need for money. Kevin later contacts Grace to ask for money and Nita begins calling Grace to reconnect with her. When Nita disappears, Grace moves to Vancouver to search for her sister, piecing together what she can about Nita's life. Lee comments that she wanted to show, through this story, "how easy it is to do things that later on seem so obviously wrong."[2]

Dead Girls has also been shortlisted[10] for the 2003 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and has received a number of awards; the book placed third for the 2003 Danuta Gleed Literary Award and was named Book of the Year by NOW Magazine,[11] A Globe and Mail Book of the Year,[12] A Vancouver Sun Book of the Year, and A Toronto Star Book of the Year.[13]