Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Baby Teeth
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://zojestage.blogspot.com/
CITY: Pittsburgh
STATE: PA
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 2017075011
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/n2017075011
HEADING: Stage, Zoje
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100 1_ |a Stage, Zoje
670 __ |a Baby teeth, 2018: |b ECIP t.p. (Zoje Stage) data view (filmmaker and write; she was a 2008 Fellow in Screenwriting from the New York Foundation of the Arts and a 2012 Emerging Storytellers Fellow from the Independent Filmmaker Project; she lives in Pittsburgh, PA; Baby Teeth is her first novel)
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, film producer, director, documentary filmmaker, playwright, and screenwriter.
AWARDS:Screenwriting fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts, 2008; winner, Screenplay Live! Screenwriting Competition, 2009; Emerging Storytellers Fellowship, Independent Filmmaker Project, 2012.
WRITINGS
Writer, director, and producer of films, including Best of Luck (a documentary). Author of the play Monster, Upstairs Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA. Also author of a blog.
SIDELIGHTS
Zoje Stage is a writer and novelist, along with being a film producer, director, documentary filmmaker, playwright, and screenwriter. She is a writer, director, and producer of films, such as Best of Luck, which concerns the difficulties experienced by aspiring writers. Her films have been shown at venues in Pennsylvania and New York, and her play Monster was staged at the Upstairs Theatre in Pittsburgh. Her honors include an Emerging Storytellers fellowship from the Independent Filmmaker Project and a screenwriting fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.
In her debut novel Baby Teeth, a “mute, diabolical seven-year-old wages war against her mother,” commented a Kirkus Reviews writer. Hanna Jensen is the youngster at the center of what the Kirkus Reviews contributor called a “chilling debut.” Her parents, Alex and Suzette, are perplexed by their daughter’s behavior. The girl adores her father, but seems to have no interest in, or love for, her mother. Making things worse, Suzette suffers from ill health, particularly a severe case of Crohn’s disease. In this environment, Hanna unfolds a plot to work against her mother, the only obstacle in the way of her total devotion to her father. The story is told in alternating chapters, switching from Hanna’s perspective to Suzette’s and back again.
Alex and Suzette have consulted with doctors and experts on Hanna’s muteness, but no physical or psychological problem has been found to explain the child’s silence. In one of her chapters, Hanna explains that she simply finds words to be a distasteful way to communicate and she deliberately chooses not to use them. She also sees her silence as one more weapon in her arsenal against her mother.
For Alex’s part, he is as devoted to his daughter as she is to him. Even though the youngster works to make her mother’s life miserable, even though she has been expelled from several preschools and kindergartens for her behavior, and even though she resists all of Suzette’s efforts to homeschool her, she is the stereotypical “apple of her father’s eye.” As the story progresses and the tension between mother and daughter intensifies, Suzette renews her search for a school that will give Hanna what she needs. Suzette doesn’t realize, however, that as she looks for a way to get her sinister daughter out of the house, Hanna herself is making plans that could mean a final deadly resolution to their ongoing conflict.
The Kirkus Reviews writer called Baby Teeth a “tightly plotted, expertly choreographed tale.” Stage “expertly crafts this creepy, can’t-put-it-down thriller into a fearless exploration of parenting and marriage,” observed a contributor to Publishers Weekly.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2018, review of Baby Teeth.
Publishers Weekly, April 16, 2018, review of Baby Teeth, p. 64.
Zoje Stage: BIO
Before turning to novels, Zoje Stage had a deep and eclectic background in film and theatre. Highlights include being a 2012 Emerging Storytellers Fellow from the Independent Filmmaker Project (IFP.org), and a 2008 Fellow in Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA.org). In 2009 she won the Screenplay Live! Screenwriting Competition, which afforded her the opportunity to direct a staged reading of her winning script, THE MACHINE WHO LOVED, for the High Falls Film Festival (Rochester, NY). Zoje has written-directed-produced numerous zero-budget films, including the documentary short BEST OF LUCK ("an amusing take on the travails of aspiring writers" - The New York Times). Her films have screened at venues such as Anthology Film Archives and Two Boots Pioneer Theater (both in NYC), Film Kitchen (Pittsburgh, PA), and Emerging Filmmakers (Rochester, NY). As a playwright, Zoje is most proud of her play MONSTER, which was produced in Pittsburgh by the Upstairs Theatre ("Ms. Stage now makes her own contribution to holocaust literature with a demanding and intensely felt play... a must-see for those wanting another view of why and how the holocaust happened." - The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). After living in Rochester, NY for many years, she is back in her hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.
Print Marked Items
Stage, Zoje: BABY TEETH
Kirkus Reviews.
(May 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Stage, Zoje BABY TEETH St. Martin's (Adult Fiction) $25.99 7, 17 ISBN: 978-1-250-17075-0
A mute, diabolical 7-year-old wages war against her mother in this chilling debut.
Hanna Jensen has never spoken aloud in front of another human being. Her parents, Alex and Suzette, have subjected her to scores of tests,
fearing a physical disability, but in truth, Hanna simply finds words to be an ugly means of expression and chooses not to use them. Hanna also
knows that her silence anguishes her mother, which is an added bonus; although Hanna adores her father, who believes she can do no wrong, she
despises Suzette and torments her at every turn. Hanna has been expelled from three preschools and two kindergartens for bad behavior, forcing
Suzette to home-school her--an arrangement that further strains their fraught relationship. The constant stress is wreaking havoc on Suzette's
health, so she redoubles her efforts to locate a school that will accept her troubled child. But as Suzette dreams of child-free days, Hanna is
making plans of her own. This tightly plotted, expertly choreographed tale unfolds in alternating chapters from the perspectives of Hanna and
Suzette. Author Stage palpably conveys Suzette's fear, anger, frustration, and desperation while exploring the deleterious effects that motherhood
can have on one's marriage and self-worth. Hanna's chapters are calm and upbeat by comparison, but they offer no respite from the book's
mounting tension; naive observations and whimsical fantasies share the page with twisted musings and nefarious schemes, the jarring
juxtaposition only compounding the reader's sense of unease.
Stage fuses horror with domestic suspense to paint an unflinching portrait of childhood psychopathy and maternal regret.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Stage, Zoje: BABY TEETH." Kirkus Reviews, 1 May 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A536571205/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7168b7ff. Accessed 19 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A536571205
Baby Teeth
Publishers Weekly.
265.16 (Apr. 16, 2018): p64.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
* Baby Teeth
Zoje Stage. St. Martin's, $25.99 (320p) ISBN 9781-250-17075-0
Stage's deviously fun debut takes childrearing anxiety to demented new heights. Frustrated and fragile stay-at-home mom Suzette and seven-yearold
Hanna alternately narrate a cascade of crises stemming from Hanna's near-total refusal to speak, her mistrust of her mom and adoration of her
dad, and the parents' frantic attempts to find a solution to Hanna's increasingly dangerous tantrums. From Hanna's perspective, Suzette is the only
thing standing in the way of the complete devotion of her father, Alex, and she plots ways to "step up her game against Mommy. "For Suzette, her
love-starved relationship with a distant mother and chronic Crohn's haunt every attempt to bond with a little girl who barks like a "feral animal"
and only speaks as a 17th-century girl named Marie-Anne Dufosset, who was burned at the stake for suspected witchcraft. For the besieged
Suzette, there's also a troubling ambivalence about whether she wants to save or kill her disturbed child. Stage expertly crafts this creepy, can'tput-it-down
thriller into a fearless exploration of parenting and marriage that finds the cracks in unconditional love. 100,000-copy announced first
printing. Agent: Sarah Bedginfield, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (July)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Baby Teeth." Publishers Weekly, 16 Apr. 2018, p. 64. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A536532678/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=96899a81. Accessed 19 Aug. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A536532678