In conversation with Rene Denfeld.

Sunshine Girl is a work of fiction that chronicles the evolution of the newspaper industry from Nixon to Biden through the lens of a multigenerational family saga.

Eliza Pearl learns the journalism trade from her father, who leads a rural Oregon newsroom. When he develops a mysteriously debilitating condition and flees to a healing center, Eliza and her mother move to Alaska to start fresh. After college, Eliza takes a job at Juneau’s largest daily, working for her father’s former protégé, Mina Breckenridge. Together they navigate sea changes in their industry: The rise of the Internet, the proliferation of social media, politicians’ “enemies of the people” accusations, the murders of journalists across the globe, and violent bloodshed closer to home. Trying to prove herself at The Tribune, Eliza becomes obsessed with a feature story about charismatic parents whose adopted daughter is a flute prodigy, a story Mina inexplicably kills. As fact gets sifted from fiction, she uncovers a decades-old reality that threatens to upend her relationship with Mina and tarnish her memories of her father. Sunshine Girl, a page-turning tale of family secrets set in a world of truth-telling, explores the art of regional journalism through the lens of an intrepid reporter who discovers more than she expects—once she starts investigating her own life.