Weetzie Bat

Weetzie Bat (1989), a young adult novel by Francesca Lia Block, is the first book in the Weetzie Bat series. It centers on a young girl and her best friend who are determined to find true love in Los Angeles. The book received rave reviews upon publication for its bold characterization, and it won the 2009 Phoenix Award from the Children’s Literature Association. Block is a bestselling novelist who won the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. She teaches creative writing at the University of Redlands.

The main character is Weetzie Bat, a teenage girl living in a hyperreal LA that embraces the late 1980s hipster scene. Weetzie is independent, even as a teenager, and she loves everything to do with the 1950s. Wanting to recapture this glamorous period in Hollywood, she rebels against conforming with her peers. She doesn’t have a good relationship with her family, and she’s determined to find somewhere she fits in better.

On her quest to find herself, Weetzie makes friends with Dirk. He’s one of the best-looking boys in school, and he’s also free-spirited. He sports a Mohawk and drives a ’55 Pontiac, which Weetzie is obsessed with. They bond over their love for the 1950s, and they wish they could find glamorous, exciting, Hollywood-worthy lovers of their own.



Dirk takes Weetzie to meet his eccentric grandmother, Fifi. She encourages them in their pursuit of this lost period. She wants them to have hopes, dreams, and ambitions. She watches old movies with them, telling them gossip and stories about their favorite stars. She takes them to old famous haunts, such as Cantor’s of West Hollywood, where actors and actresses used to gather all the time. For the first time, Weetzie is happy—she barely sees her father, and her mother is distant, so she isn’t used to having a sense of family.

Now that they’re close friends, Dirk feels comfortable telling Weetzie that he’s gay. She’s glad he’s out and that he’s embracing who he is. As they gossip about who would be their perfect match, they coin the term “Duck” for the perfect catch. When they go looking for love, they call it “Duck Hunting,” which Fifi thinks is hilarious. However, when Weetzie hooks up with a singer who’s abusive to her, Dirk makes her let the guy go. Weetzie, knowing this isn’t how love is supposed to be, is determined she won’t give up.

Fifi feels sorry for them both because they haven’t found love yet. She gives them a lamp with a genie in it. They wish for love and a home for each of them. Sadly, Fifi passes away, but this means they have a house to live in together. They think this means they’ll definitely find their Ducks soon. Dirk meets a boy he nicknames “Duck,” and Weetzie finds “My Secret Agent Lover Man.”



My Secret Agent Lover Man is a filmmaker. He wants to make Weetzie famous. She makes decent money from the films, but she doesn’t feel fulfilled. She wants a child of her own, but the man doesn’t want one. To get pregnant, she sleeps with Dirk and Duck. They plan on raising the child together. When the man finds out, he’s furious, and he leaves Weetzie. She’s upset, but she knows she’ll be okay on her own.

However, the man comes back because he loves Weetzie. He wants to raise the child, too, and they’re all briefly happy. One day, though, a woman turns up at the door claiming the man got her pregnant. She later dumps the baby on their doorstep, and Weetzie has no choice but to bring the child in and keep it.

Meanwhile, Weetzie is shattered when she finds out her dad is dead. He died of an overdose at home in his apartment; she resents how his life got so out of control. This does, however, help her get closer to her mother. She dedicates a film she’s involved in to her father; she calls it “Shangra-L.A.”



Dirk is heartbroken when Duck leaves him. Duck, finding out one of his friends has AIDS, is worried he has it, too. Dirk goes after him, bringing him back to L.A. Dirk can’t live without him. The four of them—Weetzie, Dirk, Duck, and My Secret Agent Lover Man—live together, with the two children. They’ve found their Hollywood-worthy happy ending, even if it doesn’t look the way they expected it to.

Weetzie’s obsession with finding love and getting pregnant can, in some ways, be attributed to her desire to have a family. She has never felt secure with her own parents, and she won’t be fulfilled until she builds her own family. She learns that it is possible to choose your family, not just your friends.