Faith Baldwin (1893–1978)

Wow, this is quite the progressive book! Not what I was expecting after [b:Hotel Hostess|2396315|Hotel Hostess|Faith Baldwin|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1298923207s/2396315.jpg|2403337] and its absurd moments. This is much darker, along the lines of a pre-code movie, with its themes of rape, poverty, suicide, and organized crime. It's still "women's fiction," of course, but much less fluffy than the usual.

On the other hand, it takes Faith Baldwin for this to happen: girl is show more sexually harrassed raped coerced into marrying her rapist forced to quit the job that makes her happy forced to carry now-husband's child...and THE MAN TURNS OUT TO BE A SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER! I just _can't_.

Quotable:

"Forgive her?" Her eyes were clear scorn. "What have you to forgive, exactly?"
He flung a man's name at her, defiantly. He said, "You can't deny that, can you?"
"No," said Ellen, white. "I can't...We'll take that for granted. Very well. Shall we say that you forgive, then, her unchastity, although you've been perfectly chaste?"
"That's different," he said flushing, "that's not fair of you, Ellen. A man--"
"A man," said Ellen, "can regard his chastity as something to be disposed of as quickly and as lightly as possible. A man can, of course, do as he pleases--deny himself nothing. Not, I suppose, a woman. A woman can--you call it sin in a woman, don't you?--sin once, because she is foolish, because she is young, because she thinks herself passionately in love, because promises are made her--and that's her finish, I suppose. It's a swell world," said Ellen, grimly.

***

"You're barkin' up the wrong tree, sister," he murmured. "She'll come home. With a wedding ring. Or, without...After all, she ain't a minor, you know. Age of consent, and all that." show less

In which FB entertains domestic abuse as romance: "It wasn't that she believed he would humiliate her physically. He wasn't that sort. Or was he? Perhaps. She would probably never know whether he could bring himself to the common, hearty, explosive level of the man on the street who knocks his wife down and then raises her to kiss the bruise his careless fist has made. But the very fact that he was capable of thinking that he could--"

It feels like FB wrote this while still entertaining delusions of grandeur and before devolving into entirely cray romance novels. Not that I'm complaining. There were just a few too many single-word sentences and hyphens for emphasis for my taste. According to my memory, too, this bears relatively little resemblance to the Barbara Stanwyck movie that followed.

quotable:

"You needn't bother. I don't think we're going to be married." Lynn pushed her small hat even farther off her forehead and show more sat down limply in the one big chair. "What?" asked Jennie, rising from the couch. "Haven't had a row, have you? What about? Margaret Sanger or the family budget?"

"Well, I wonder," said Jennie, "whether it pays to be a virgin!"

...and one of FB's most convoluted sentences yet:

Small, dark, a youthful man, in whose veins the South European blood retained memories of laughter and knives, slow hot sunlight and twisted vines dripping the purple, hazy flesh of grapes, he stood in a swaying car and, as it slid to a stop, reached out a swarthy hand and touched the mechanical contrivance which opens a cage and lets forth an amorphous mass of human beings; a mass which, upon reaching the platform, resolved itself into separately moving, breathing, sometimes thinking, atoms. show less

The product of an unhappy marriage and finally a broken home, Pamela Norris spends first her adolescence and then her young womanhood as the friend, companion and confidante of her writer-father, Andrew, who must resign his college professorship after his wife divorces him. The Norrises spend several years travelling together, so comfortable with each other that they rarely seek other company. As a result, Pamela reaches adulthood intellectually advanced but emotionally immature, with little show more experience of interacting with people her own age. When her father dies suddenly, the solitary Pamela is offered a job in the New York publishing firm that handled his books, and from financial necessity shares an apartment with a co-worker, Rachel James. Pamela is at first bewildered by Rachel's casual approach to life, but becomes accustomed to her friends running in and out of their apartment at all hours. One day, Pamela is home alone when Tony Powell, an aspiring artist, drops in. Almost before she knows it, Pamela is swept into the first serious love affair of her life; one that ends disastrously, with Pamela forced to confront not only her pregnancy, but the realisation that Tony is not the man she thought...

While its general story-line is familiar enough, Faith Baldwin's 1931 novel about a girl "in trouble" manages to separate itself from the pack through its non-judgemental handling of its material. To the reader, seeing Tony Powell through clearer eyes than the dazzled Pamela, the end of the affair is inevitable from the outset; and when, in rapid succession, Tony reacts with anger at the thought of his ruined life, an offer to pay for an abortion, an accusation that the pregnancy is a lie to trap him into marriage, the suggestion that another man's child is being foisted on him, and finally by leaving the country, it is hard not to cheer Pamela's determination to have nothing more to do with him regardless of what society might dictate. Pamela is fortunate in her sympathetic doctor, who has seen only too many such cases, and who arranges both a home and medical care for her in Merton, a small town in Pennsylvania, where his own nephew, Dr John Lathrop, runs a hospital. However, Dr Edwards warns Pamela that Dr Lathrop is entirely conventional in his thinking, and that in order to secure this refuge, she must pose as a widow. Pamela finds the necessity for deceit humiliating, but has no choice but to agree.

Through Pamela's experience, Faith Baldwin presents both sides of the argument - and the fact that, writing in 1931, she thought that there were two sides makes her fairly daring. The prevailing social view is put into the mouth of Dr Lathrop, who is unflinching in his condemnation of transgressors; but the inclusion of a subplot about a pregnant teenager being forced into marriage with a violent man who has already beaten her makes Baldwin's own distaste for such blanket judgement clear enough. So, too, is her opinion of the fact that as a single mother, Pamela faces rejection by the medical profession, and can only obtain decent care by a lie. Nevertheless, Baldwin does not contend that Pamela's way is "the" right way, only that it is right for her.

But Pamela does not escape punishment for her flouting of convention, even if it does not come in the usual form. After the birth of her son, Pamela stays on in Merton, working as Dr Lathrop's secretary. The two become close, and when the doctor proposes marriage, Pamela is forced into a terrible decision, one rendered still more terrible when Tony Powell - who, while he did not want either the child or marriage, cannot tolerate Pamela's rejection of him - finally tracks her down. The resulting confrontation decides the fate of Pamela and her son - and also teaches Dr Lathrop that there is sometimes a gap between theory and practice... show less