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Loading... The Prodigal Women: A Novel (original 1942; edition 2023)99 | 3 | 278,111 |
(3.06) | 8 | Rediscover the sensational 1942 bestseller that unveiled the Jazz Age as women lived it Ranging from posh Beacon Hill to go-go New York City to stately Virginia, a sweeping coming-of-age story of three women's lives, loves, and ambitions in the 1920s, '30s and '40s Set in Boston, New York, and Virginia, The Prodigal Women tells the intertwined stories of three young women who come of age in the Roaring Twenties, not flappers and golden girls but flesh-and-blood female protagonists looking wearily--and warily--at the paths open to women in a rapidly changing world. Leda March, "frantic with self-consciousness and envy and desire," is the daughter of poorer relations of a prominent Boston family and an aspiring poet torn between an impulse to conformity and the pursuit of personal freedom. Betsy Jekyll, newly arrived with her family from Virginia, becomes Leda's closest childhood friend, bringing a beguiling new warmth and openness into the New Englander's life. But Betsy soon abandons Boston to land a job at a fashion magazine and enjoy life as a single woman in New York before falling in love with--and marrying--an abusive, controlling man. Betsy's older sister, Maizie, a Southern belle idolized by the two younger friends and pursued by numerous men, grows tired of "running around" and fatefully looks for happiness in marriage to a turbulent artist. When The Prodigal Women was published in 1942, its uncompromising portrayal of women's shifting roles, open sexuality, and ambivalence toward motherhood made it a succèss de scandale, spending twenty-three weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Now Library of America restores Nancy Hale's lost classic to print with a new introduction by Kate Bolick exploring how the novel measures "the gap between what liberation looks like, and what it actually is."… (more) |
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To Elizabeth Nowell Perkins ![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/transdot.gif) | |
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None ▾Book descriptions Rediscover the sensational 1942 bestseller that unveiled the Jazz Age as women lived it Ranging from posh Beacon Hill to go-go New York City to stately Virginia, a sweeping coming-of-age story of three women's lives, loves, and ambitions in the 1920s, '30s and '40s Set in Boston, New York, and Virginia, The Prodigal Women tells the intertwined stories of three young women who come of age in the Roaring Twenties, not flappers and golden girls but flesh-and-blood female protagonists looking wearily--and warily--at the paths open to women in a rapidly changing world. Leda March, "frantic with self-consciousness and envy and desire," is the daughter of poorer relations of a prominent Boston family and an aspiring poet torn between an impulse to conformity and the pursuit of personal freedom. Betsy Jekyll, newly arrived with her family from Virginia, becomes Leda's closest childhood friend, bringing a beguiling new warmth and openness into the New Englander's life. But Betsy soon abandons Boston to land a job at a fashion magazine and enjoy life as a single woman in New York before falling in love with--and marrying--an abusive, controlling man. Betsy's older sister, Maizie, a Southern belle idolized by the two younger friends and pursued by numerous men, grows tired of "running around" and fatefully looks for happiness in marriage to a turbulent artist. When The Prodigal Women was published in 1942, its uncompromising portrayal of women's shifting roles, open sexuality, and ambivalence toward motherhood made it a succèss de scandale, spending twenty-three weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. Now Library of America restores Nancy Hale's lost classic to print with a new introduction by Kate Bolick exploring how the novel measures "the gap between what liberation looks like, and what it actually is." ▾Library descriptions No library descriptions found. ▾LibraryThing members' description
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Leda March, born into Boston society, never feels at ease with her fellow debutantes, whom she despises--at the same time envying their confidence. Her childhood friends, Betsy and Maizie Jekyll, are transplanted Southerners whose exuberant gaiety provides a riotous contrast to the dull, stolid Boston manners she has always known. Enchanted with the freedom and lack of pretension of the Jekyll household, Leda becomes an adoring witness to the flow of Maizie's suitors. But after Maizie's unfortunate marriage to a rebellious artist, the three women drift apart and only years later do they find their lives--this time tragically--intertwined again. Though each in her own way has defied the rules, not one of the three has been able to break free from the overwhelming demands of her passionate nature. Wth timeless insights, Nancy Hale captures the emotional wrenching that continues to pull women every which way even more than forty years after The Prodigal Women was first published. (From the back cover of the Plume edition) ![](https://image.librarything.com/pics/transdot.gif) | |
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This is the biggest bucket of crap I've read since American psycho. The characters lived around the time my mom and dad were born: late 1920s. I got all the way to page 407 and just couldn't take it anymore. This woman author let's the men characters fuck around all they want, but these same men characters find out that their girlfriends have been to bed with other men, and oh boy! they let them have it: verbal, physical, mental abuse..... and the stupid women characters just take it.
I could have sworn this was a man writing as a woman, but noooooo.
Okay this was written in the early 1940s, but it is no excuse to be writing this enabling crap. Grrrr, I am so angry I wasted all this time trying to see if these asshole characters were going to get theirs. (