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Charity Girl

Charity Girl Paperback - 2008

by Michael Lowenthal

  • Used
  • very good
  • Paperback

Through the eyes of one fictional "charity girl," this novel explores an astonishing time when patriotic fervor and fear led to devastating consequences--when the U.S. government quarantined and incarcerated young women who were thought to have venereal diseases.

Description

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2008. Paperback. Very Good. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Used - Very Good
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Details

  • Title Charity Girl
  • Author Michael Lowenthal
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Condition Used - Very Good
  • Pages 336
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, Boston, MA
  • Date 2008
  • Bookseller's Inventory # G0618919783I4N00
  • ISBN 9780618919789 / 0618919783
  • Weight 0.72 lbs (0.33 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.25 x 5.43 x 0.8 in (20.96 x 13.79 x 2.03 cm)
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1900-1919
    • Sex & Gender: Feminine
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Summary

During World War I, seventeen-year-old Frieda Mintz secures a job at a Boston department store and strikes out on her own, escaping her repressive Jewish mother and marriage to a wealthy widower twice her age. Determined to find love on her own terms, she is intoxicated by her newfound freedom and the patriotic fervor of the day. That is, until a soldier reports her as his last sexual contact, sweeping her up in the government’s wartime crusade against venereal disease. Quarantined in a detention center, Frieda finds in the Home’s confines a group of brash, unforgettable women who help her see the way to a new kind of independence.

Charity Girl is based on a little-known chapter in American history that saw fifteen thousand women across the nation incarcerated. Like When the Emperor Was Divine, Lowenthal’s poignant, provocative novel will leave readers moved - and astonished by the shameful facts that inspired it.

Media reviews

“Lively and illuminating . . . marr[ies] the facts of history with the details that make a fictional life come alive.”—Anita Shreve The Washington Post

“Even while capturing the great sweep of the period, Charity Girl celebrates most the depth of the characters’ lives.”—Matthew Pearl

Citations

  • New York Times Book Review, 01/13/2008, Page 32