Publication Date: August 18, 2026
Clementine is a girl in trouble. She’s homeless, living in a conversion van at a campground tucked into a little stretch of riverfront on the Potomac. She’s hungry, craving Pop-Tarts while forced to eat fried snake for supper. And she’s pregnant. Daddy says he’ll fix it. But unlike Mama and the folks who believe he can walk on water, Clem knows better than to trust Daddy.
In Precious Ugly, Rae Cline draws us into the story of a thirteen-year-old girl seeking to escape her abusive, alcoholic, charismatic father and desperate to protect her mother. Set in 1985 in Harpers Ferry and Jolo, West Virginia, it’s a story anchored in the promise of Reagan, the fear of AIDS, the songs of Patti Smith, Cyndi Lauper, and Tina Turner heard through a Walkman, and other signs of its time and place. It’s also a universal and ongoing story about poverty, addiction, religious charlatans, sexual predators, and how children are made to suffer for the sins of their parents. As told through the eyes of its remarkable young heroine, Precious Ugly is ultimately a story about the everyday marvels of tenacity and resourcefulness, the kindness of strangers, and the possibility of breaking the cycle of domestic violence and generational trauma.
A 13-year-old girl struggles to find hope in a life filled with abuse.
Written from Clementine’s perspective, Precious Ugly requires deep concentration in order to read between the lines. Author Rae Cline uses the innocence of a young girl to highlight abusive scenarios at the hands of her father.
Her father is a religious charlatan who uses his charismatic personality to con people out of their money. As the story unfolds, Clementine’s primary objective is keeping her mother from knowing about the child growing in her belly.
It’s a challenging story to read because there are no quotation marks to designate dialogue. On top of that, everything is viewed through Clementine’s lens. The scene with the snakes leading to her hospitalization serves to reinforce a fragile existence.
What would have made this story more impactful would have been for an adult Clementine to reflect on the past, since the story is set in 1985. Then, she could have added context that clearly calls out what is implied in the teen’s words.
Precious Ugly delivers a story of a teen girl caught up in a cycle of abuse.
Rae Cline is the author of the short story collection The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals. Her stories, essays, and prose poetry have appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, and more. She earned an M.A. in Writing from John Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from American University. A teacher for thirty-five years, she taught writing and literature at the secondary level as well as at her alma maters, the International Writing Program at Iowa State University, and other campuses. She is the founding editor of Eckleburg, where she writes the Openings column, and the founder of the Warm Words Project, a homeless and domestic violence outreach initiative. Born in Ohio, she now splits time between New York City and the Gulf of Mexico. Precious Ugly is her first novel.
