Emily Singer on DOLL BABY: Girlhood, Performance, and the Quiet Architecture of Becoming

Photo by Maya Aviezer

Emily Singer’s debut novel, DOLL BABY arrives like a voice caught mid-thought, the kind of novel that understands how much of girlhood is performance and how little of it ever feels fully articulated in real time. Across its pages, Jolie moves through adolescence and early adulthood with a self-awareness that softens nothing, observing herself almost as closely as she lives. The result is a debut that feels less like a traditional coming-of-age story and more like a sustained study in perception, control, and the quiet moments where those defenses begin to loosen.

In conversation with NUOVO, Emily opens up about the creative process, inspiration, and what she learned along the way. 

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NUOVO: DOLL BABY feels almost confessional in its tone. How did you arrive at Jolie’s voice, and what did it take to maintain that level of emotional precision without over-explaining her interior world?

EMILY SINGER: I spent years knowing in my heart that I was a writer, but not fully trusting in my own voice. Always feeling too young, or like I didn’t have anything definitive enough to say. As I got into my mid-twenties I realized that I could actually use that to my advantage–that I was still close enough to Jolie’s age to remember every feeling so viscerally. 

I read obsessively during the writing process–mainly women’s fiction. All of the writers that I loved and idolized created characters that were messy, imperfect, and even unlikeable at times. What stayed with me was that they didn’t explain everything, they trusted the reader to sit in discomfort. Their characters made you feel something, regardless if that feeling was good.

Though Jolie is her own character, a lot of the shaping of her voice came out of my own inner world, emotions, and experiences as a young woman growing up in Los Angeles and even the emotions I experienced during the last few years I spent writing Doll Baby. By the end of the book, Jolie learns to trust her own voice and likewise, I learned to trust mine. 

NUOVO: Jolie is hyper-aware of how she’s being perceived, yet so much of the novel lives in what goes unsaid. How did you think about silence as part of her voice?

ES: I think part of Jolie’s chip on her shoulder is that she’s hyper-aware of herself and others, constantly scanning those around her (and herself) for inconsistencies in their behavior. She notices everything, but doesn’t typically allow herself to feel deeply. She’s constantly editing herself in real time–what she says, what she withholds, how she’s coming across. I focused a lot on body language and tone. Silence is a language in itself.

NUOVO: The novel captures a version of girlhood that feels beautiful on the surface, but quietly unraveling underneath. What drew you to that tension between appearance and what’s actually happening beneath it?

ES: This contrast feels very specific to growing up in Los Angeles, but can really be found anywhere that there is an abundance of wealth and privilege. It’s this constant performance of ease, beauty, and effortlessness. What things look like versus what they actually feel like.

NUOVO: Jolie often seems to move through spaces—bedrooms, parties, social environments—as if they’re stages. How much of DOLL BABY is about performance, and what happens when that performance starts to slip?

ES: Jolie has a lot of armor. She’s often putting up a front or using wit, humor, or self-deprecation to get out of saying how she feels. Those spaces become places where she’s trying on versions of herself. The tension comes when that performance becomes exhausting and when she really wants to find out who she is when no one is watching. 

NUOVO: There’s a subtle but powerful shift from wanting to be chosen to something closer to self-recognition. Was that evolution something you always knew would anchor the narrative?

ES: To be honest…no. I really didn’t know exactly where the book was headed until I was almost done with it. I feel like, in hindsight, I had to go through similar experiences myself to be able to properly articulate this journey that is so prevalent amongst young women. 

NUOVO: The novel spans a decade, but it doesn’t follow a traditional coming-of-age arc. How did you approach time-what to linger on, what to leave fragmented, and what to let blur together?

ES: I tried to approach time in the book the way memory works. Certain moments stay sharply intact, while others fragment or disappear entirely. My mom always taught me that you may not remember what someone said, but you’ll always remember how it made you feel. I reminded myself of that sentiment a lot while writing. I wasn’t trying to capture everything Jolie went through from ages fifteen to twenty five. One, because it would’ve been a much longer book and two, because the thing I wanted it to feel most was honest. 

NUOVO: Memory in the book feels atmospheric rather than fixed, almost like a series of impressions. Were you more interested in emotional truth than chronological clarity?

ES: Definitely emotional truth. Memory isn’t objective. We remember things based on feelings. By what stays with you. I wanted the structure to reflect that and to also feel detached in a sense, the way Jolie could be emotionally detached at times.

NUOVO:  Your prose is lyrical but restrained—observational and slightly distant . How do you calibrate that balance between aesthetic beauty and emotional honesty? How intentional was that emotional temperature?

ES: I wanted contrast to exist, not just in Jolie’s emotional journey, but in the writing itself. As for the emotional temperature, it was extremely intentional. It mirrored Jolie’s voice. That distance reflects how Jolie protects herself. She’s observing even as she’s experiencing things, because she thinks it gives her a sense of safety to call it out first rather than just existing in her emotions.

Photo Courtesy of Emily Blair Media

NUOVO:  DOLL BABY arrives at a moment when conversations around girlhood feel especially visible and contested. Did you feel in dialogue with that cultural landscape while writing, or was the process more insular?

ES: Honestly, I’d had the idea for this book since I was in High School, myself. A lot of the books that have stuck with me have similar themes. Some of the standouts for me were The Girls by Emma Cline, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, and Normal People by Sally Rooney. 

So the process itself was fairly insular, but I think when you write honestly about something like girlhood, it inevitably enters into a larger conversation whether you’re consciously trying to or not.

NUOVO:  There’s a growing appetite for voice-driven, psychologically intimate storytelling. What do you think readers are searching for in this kind of narrative right now?

ES: I think readers–people, really–want something honest and intimate. Something relatable. Look at the change in social media for example. We’ve gone from curated, aesthetic, superficial content to honest, vulnerable, and conversational content.  

NUOVO: How do you see DOLL BABY sitting within—or pushing against—the expectations of the coming-of-age genre?

ES: I think Doll Baby can be relatable both to the twenty year old in University and to women in their 50s with grown up children. Both were once girls. 

NUOVO: Your work feels instinctive but exacting, as though every line has been carefully stripped back. What does your editing process look like?

ES: I unfortunately, like Jolie, also edit myself in real time. It’s a terrible habit, really. Some of my best writing comes from long streams of thought, but I am extremely intentional, type A, if you will. I wanted every sentence to feel like it was important and I’m not sure if I achieved that, per say, but I feel like I allowed my voice to shine through, while still being discerning.

NUOVO:  Were there any parts of Jolie’s story that surprised you as you were writing—moments where the character resisted your initial instincts?

ES: So many! I think I initially wanted her to be more extraverted but she lives in her own head a lot of the time. 

Photo Courtesy of Emily Blair Media

NUOVO: Do you write toward clarity, or do you allow ambiguity to lead and trust meaning will surface later?

ES: I don’t think I play by any sort of rules when I write. That’s entirely the reason I love writing so much. I was never much of a rule follower.

NUOVO: The novel resists neat resolution. What were you hoping readers would carry with them after the final page?

ES: That Jolie’s story goes on. That healing isn’t linear, it’s a journey. That recognition and articulation of your own patterns only gets you so far, until you choose another way to be.

NUOVO:  If Jolie could look back on the version of herself we meet at the beginning of the novel, what do you think she would recognize—and what would feel completely unfamiliar?

ES: I think she’d recognize that desire to be chosen. That feeling doesn’t just go away. But the way she relates to it would feel unfamiliar. By the end of the novel, she’s a lot more confident and a lot more honest with herself. She’s self-assured in a way that she wasn’t as a young girl. She’s become a woman who chooses herself first and foremost.