Coming of Age in Sewickley: Girls — Anna Bruno Captures the Search for Truth in Fine Young People

If there were a writing recipe for Anna Bruno’s successful coming-of-age novel, Fine Young People (Algonquin Books, $29), it might go something like this: Start with Sewickley, that quaint, upper-class enclave 12 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, as a backdrop. Next, combine a plucky young protagonist with the keys to finding the answers she’s looking for among the legacy of unsolved tragedies surrounding St. Ignatius High School and its winning hockey team. Then, let it bake over the course of 296 pages, with plot twists well-placed as an all-important garnish.

Place plays a prominent role in this second novel for the Upper St. Clair native and Iowa Writer’s Workshop alum. Bruno explores the wealth gap between her characters, establishing the novel’s tone and making readers aware of who “has” and who “has not.” Propelled by the sharp-minded and thoughtful teenage lead, Francesca “Frankie” Paladino, and her best friend, Shiv, the seniors at the gated St. Ignatius take the motto of their Community Journalism class to heart: “Without the truth, the community cannot survive.”

The inciting incident of Fine Young People is the recent death of a third superstar St. Ignatius hockey player in 18 years, his last moments captured on video — “the white Tesla, the Norfolk Southern railroad bridge, the unnatural sight of the car dropping 70 feet.” Bruno uses the likable Frankie as the nexus between the swirling dynamics of wealth, religion, and ice hockey, with the sport taking on outsized importance at the school.

The structure of Fine Young People skews a bit unconventional as it begins with Frankie at Princeton, considering “a different version of myself … the end of this story — not justice, exactly, but something more personal.” Frankie and Shiv’s “investigation” travels back in time, as the tension builds toward resolution.

Bruno speaks to what could be the sum of all creative writing advice when she inserts a quote from a teacher’s whiteboard lesson: “We experience particular events, not universal truths.”