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Charity Girl

Charity Girl Paperback / softback - 2008

by Michael Lowenthal

  • New
  • 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

Paperback / softback. New.
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Details

  • Title Charity Girl
  • Author Michael Lowenthal
  • Binding Paperback / softback
  • Edition Reprint
  • Condition New
  • Pages 336
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Harper Perennial, Boston, MA
  • Date 2008-01-08
  • Bookseller's Inventory # B9780618919789
  • 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

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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