An Egg on Three Sticks - Paperback

by Jackie Fischer (Author)

Finally Abby is thirteen. A real teenager who only wants to pierce her ears, have a boyfriend, and run her own life. But when her mother suffers a nervous breakdown, Abby faces a life far different from what she hoped for. Set in the Bay Area in the '70s, An Egg on Three Sticks is Jackie Moyer Fischer's emotional, funny, and extraordinarily heartfelt novel about Abby's struggle to hold her family together, find love from a mother who has little to give, and simply try to be thirteen.

With a voice completely fresh and honest, Abby takes us on a journey that is often hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and overwhelmingly hopeful. But a journey no thirteen-year-old should have to take.

Back Jacket

You can't stop reading An Egg on Three Sticks once you start it. Three pages in, I was hooked. --Billie Letts, author of Where the Heart Is

An Egg on Three Sticks, Jackie Moyer Fischer's absorbing first novel, is as genuine as the voice at its center. Abby, one of the most engaging young narrators since Elizabeth Berg's Katie in Durable Goods, tells her story with honesty, toughness, and a vulnerability that carries the reader along with a sense of suspense and deep emotional investment to its heartbreaking conclusion. In an impressive and rewarding writerly feat, Fischer manages to make Abby's story funny, entertaining, devastating, and redemptive, all at the same time.
--Stephanie Rosenfeld, author of What About the Love Part?

Fischer's novel is a spare, unflinching picture of a nuclear family's disintegration. At the same time, it's a nostalgic ride through the goofy, vulnerable years of early adolescence, when stolen hallway kisses, forbidden pulp novels, and super-short miniskirts are of monumental importance. --Emily Jenkins, author of Mister Posterior and the Genius Child

In prose both fresh and piercing, Fischer brings us so close to her narrator that we feel what it's like to be thirteen . . . and to be tormented by a potent mixture of love, anger, and guilt as you start to face the hard truths of the adult world. Abby's voice is unfaltering; its honesty and pure tone animates a story of immediate and affecting emotional power.
--Anitra Sheen, author of Things Unspoken

An Egg on Three Sticks is a step into the bewildering world of adolescence. . . . Profound, fresh, funny, it will make you laugh as it breaks your heart.
--Tom Spanbauer, author of In the City of Shy Hunters

The voice and flow of this funny, sad, life-loving work are so note-perfect that taking in An Egg on Three Sticks feels less like reading a novel than hanging out with its unforgettable teenage protagonist Abby Goodman as she lays it all out to you. Fischer's remarkable debut will keep you up at night whizzing through its pages, and will haunt and delight you long afterwards. --Fred Pfeil, author of White Guys and What They Tell You to Forget

With her poetic writing and honest voice, Fischer has captured a twelve-year-old's description of her mother's breakdown. I'm very much looking forward to Fischer's next book. --Jasmine Paul, author of A Girl, in Parts

Author Biography

Jackie Moyer Fischer grew up in Saratoga, California, and McMinnville, Oregon. She graduated from Oregon State University (English) and Lewis and Clark Northwestern School of Law (J.D). She now lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and too many cats. She has made peace with the rain and now prefers it to sunshine.