Welcome Mary Pauline Lowry

Please welcome Mary Pauline Lowry, author of The Earthquake Machine. Ms. Lowry is here to give the lowdown on her book.

Top 10 Reasons Why

The Earthquake Machine

Will Rock Your World

      You’ll blush when you find out what an earthquake machine is.

It proves that women can be amazing criminals.

It’ll take you from Austin to Big Bend National Park, to the desert and jungles of Mexico, to Oaxaca and Mexico City.

      The Huffington Post says, “Lowry has created a story that belongs on bookshelves next to other fine literature. The Earthquake Machine moves Lowry into an elite group of young female writers who know that the feminist movement is about more than equal pay for equal work and that a girl has a right to be a grrrlllll, if she chooses.

 

      One prudish reviewer declared The Earthquake Machine “worse than smut.”

     

      It chronicles the sexual coming-of-age of a 14 year old runaway.

      You’ll learn what it’s like to be alone and tripping on peyote in the middle of the jungle at night.

      The Queen of Teen Fiction says, “The writing is fantastic and the story is completely unique and unforgettable.

      It’s about a girl who leaves behind the world she knows to go on a fantastical journey through Mexico.

      It’s all about Girl Power!

The Earthquake Machine

The book every girl should read,

and every girl’s parents hope she’ll never read.

The Earthquake Machine tells the story of 14 year-old Rhonda. On the outside, everything looks perfect in Rhonda’s world, but at home Rhonda has to deal with a manipulative father who keeps her mentally ill mother hooked on pharmaceuticals. The only reliable person in Rhonda’s life is her family’s Mexican yardman, Jesús. But when the INS deports Jesús back to his home state of Oaxaca, Rhonda is left alone with her increasingly painful family situation.

Determined to find her friend Jésus, Rhonda seizes an opportunity to run away during a camping trip with friends to Big Bend National Park. She swims to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and makes her way to the border town of Milagros, Mexico. There a peyote- addled bartender convinces her she won’t be safe traveling alone into the country’s interior. So with the bartender’s help, Rhonda cuts her hair and assumes the identity of a Mexican boy named Angel. She then sets off on a burro across the desert to look for Jesús. Thus begins a wild adventure that fulfills the longing of readers eager for a brave and brazen female protagonist.

 

Mary Pauline Lowry has worked as a forest firefighter, screenwriter, open water lifeguard, construction worker, and advocate in the movement to end violence against women. Due to no fault of her sweet parents, at 15 she ran away from home and made it all the way to Matamoros, Mexico. She believes girls should make art, have adventures, and read books that show them the way.