Weekend Recap, in #JustOneParagraph

On Sunday, we rested. Well, we rested a little. We went to the movies in the morning (Who goes to the movies at 10:30 AM? Oh yeah, we do). Later, during the warmth of the afternoon, I couldn't quite muster up the mental energy for reading books or writing reviews about them (I have Monday for that–a medical appointment in the morning, but no work for the day!). Instead, I played games and read blog posts on my iPad–at five PM, it held no unread posts, and it stayed that way for just over an hour (because I put down the iPad to have dinner with my family and didn't refresh it again until just before 6:30). (And by 10 PM, it was at zero again–a clean slate for Monday morning!) During the time in between, we cleared out shelves and cabinets, loaded boxes, and made stacks. The books that will be guests of honor at my giveaway party next weekend are piled all around, and the ones that will move with us are being packed away. One group is ready to travel to their new home next door, while I hope many members of the other group will be welcomed into the homes of my book-loving friends.

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The Boys and Me, in #JustOneParagraph

It occurred to me, as we went out to dinner last night, that I'll soon be the only female member of my household for the first time in fifteen years…and yes, that's counting the dogs. There was even a nearly five-year period when the girls outnumbered the guys around here, although we've been at parity since we lost Gypsy in 2010. But now, as three of us get ready to move next door, our girl is preparing to move to the opposite corner of the country, and it will soon be just the boys and me again. They're not the same “boys” with whom I shared my life and home fifteen years ago; I was seven years and nearly two thousand miles away from meeting them (and no one had met the younger one, since he didn't yet exist), but as I contemplate this next stage, I have a feeling of coming back around. I hope we'll be able to add a dog back into the mix before too long, too.

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Saturday, in #JustOneParagraph

So, after doing my customary Saturday-morning runaround, I will return home today to…watch paint dry. Our front door is supposed to be painted at noon–assuming the painters saw the note–and then it has to be left open for four hours to dry, so we'll have to stay home with it. If they haven't seen the note, we may be waiting even longer to see if they actually show up to paint it at all; considering that they painted the building almost two weeks before the schedule said they were supposed to, we're not sure what to expect here. Then again, an excuse to lounge around the house on a Saturday afternoon probably isn't a bad thing.

 



 

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TLC Book Tour: THE VIRGIN CURE, by Ami McKay

The Virgin Cure: A Novel
Ami McKay (Facebook) (Twitter) (Pinterest)
Harper Perennial (July 2013), trade paper (ISBN 0061140341 / 9780061140341)
Fiction (historical), 352 pages
Source: Hardcover provided by publisher
Reason for reading: TLC Book Tour (to support the paperback edition)

Opening lines: “I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.

“My father ran off when I was three years old. He emptied the rent money out of the biscuit tin and took my mother’s only piece of silver--a tarnished sugar bowl she’d found in the rubble of a Third Avenue fire.

“‘Don’t go...’ Mama would call out in her sleep, begging and pulling at the blanket we shared as if it were the sleeve of my father’s coat. Lying next to her, I’d wish for morning and the hours when she’d go back to hating him. At least then her bitterness would be awake enough to keep her alive.”

Book description, from the publisher’s website
One summer night in Lower Manhattan in 1871, twelve-year-old Moth is pulled from her bed and sold as a servant to a finely dressed woman. Knowing that her mother is so close while she is locked away in servitude, Moth bides her time until she can escape, only to find her old home deserted and her mother gone without a trace. Moth must struggle to survive alone in the murky world of the Bowery, a wild and lawless enclave filled with thieves, beggars, sideshow freaks, and prostitutes. 

She eventually meets Miss Everett, the proprietress of an "Infant School," a brothel that caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for "willing and clean" companions—desirable young virgins like Moth. She also finds friendship with Dr. Sadie, a female physician struggling against the powerful forces of injustice. The doctor hopes to protect Moth from falling prey to a terrible myth known as the "virgin cure"—the tragic belief that deflowering a "fresh maid" can cleanse the blood and heal men afflicted with syphilis—which has destroyed the lives of other Bowery girls. 

Ignored by society and unprotected by the law, Moth dreams of independence. But there's a high price to pay for freedom, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street.

Comments: I’ve had Ami McKay’s 2012 historical novel The Virgin Cure on my radar since it was originally published, so I jumped at the chance to read it for a blog tour tied to the paperback edition. The novel’s premise was simultaneously fascinating and repellent to me: it’s the story of a young girl on her own in 19th-century New York City who ends up as a prostitute-in-training...because, really, how many other options might she have, outside of the streets and the orphan trains? In addition, it sounded like it shared some elements of time and place with something else that landed on my radar around the same time, BBC America’s Civil-War-era, Lower-Manhattan-set police procedural Copper, which featured a girl in similar circumstances during its first season. And while I’ll admit that the TV show did help me to visualize Moth’s world in my mind’s eye, McKay’s story did take me to a very different place.

Moth Fenwick escapes servitude to a wealthy but very unstable woman--a position she was sold into be her own mother--and returns to the Bowery slums to discover she is now both parentless and homeless. Driven into the streets, she meets Mae, a bold and seemingly prosperous girl just a few years older. Mae lives in the house of Miss Emma Everett with four other young women--three of whom are popular and established prostitutes, while Mae and Alice are “whores-in-training”--and assures Moth there’s room for one more. The comfort and companionship of Miss Everett’s house draws Moth in, but she’s uneasy with what she’ll eventually be expected to do in order to remain there...and so is “Dr. Sadie,” the woman physician who tends to the girls, and who is all too aware of a special danger to those new to the trade. Miss Everett can obtain a high price for a girl’s first time, but if the girl is chosen to provide “the virgin cure” that’s believed to cure syphilis, she’s the one who ultimately will pay it.

The Virgin Cure is told through Moth’s first-person narration, and I loved the voice that McKay gave her--it didn’t feel anachronistic to me, but it was modern enough in style that my reading just sailed along. And I loved the character Moth had, too--observant, determined, and resourceful, but never to a degree that strained credibility. I also appreciated that many of the other characters displayed shadings and dimensions that the supporting cast in a first-person narrative doesn’t always receive; for me, the richness of the novel came primarily from the characters themselves, and less from the setting and plot. However, on that note, the book is strewn with framing devices--newspaper clippings pertinent to plot developments, snippets and quotes from publications and pamphlets of the time, and entries from Dr. Sadie’s journals--that enhance its effectiveness as a document of its time and place, although I’m not clear how much of this material is culled from actual historical documents. (That said, Dr. Sadie is based on a real person--McKay’s own great-great-grandmother, who worked with the pioneering women physicians Drs. Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell. In the Author’s Note at the end of the novel, McKay mentions that her original inspiration for The Virgin Cure was her ancestor’s story, but she clearly ended up shifting direction.)

The Virgin Cure goes to some dark places, but I went along with it quite willingly. It’s one of the most fully-absorbing, fully-realized works of fiction I’ve read this year, and I say that as a reader who isn’t a great fan of historical fiction as a sub-genre. That said, virtually spending a few days in the world of nearly 150 years ago can serve as a good reminder that some things in the world really have gotten better...and that for many, especially women and the poor, a return to the “good old days” wouldn’t be good at all.

Rating: 4 of 5

Other stops on this TLC Book Tour

Tuesday, July 2nd: Life in the Thumb

Wednesday, July 3rd: BoundByWords

Saturday, July 6th: Doing Dewey

Tuesday, July 9th: Becca’s Byline

Wednesday, July 10th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Thursday, July 11th: Kritters Ramblings

Monday, July 15th: A Reader of Fictions

Tuesday, July 16th: BookNAround

Wednesday, July 17th: Melissa Firman

Thursday, July 18th: West Metro Mommy

Monday, July 22nd: Peppermint PhD

Thursday, July 25th: From L.A. to LA

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Waiting For...#JustOneParagraph

He wasn't the first or last to say it, but he did say it with music, and Tom Petty was right: the waiting is the hardest part. It's hard when you've been assured that you've done all you can do and that the outcome will probably be what you want and expect–you just don't know when to expect it. It'll come when it comes...and when it does, it won't even be the end. You're waiting for the thing that will start everything else. While you 're waiting, you can start on some of the everything-else, but there's only so far you can go with it before you have to set it aside…and wait. It's the hardest part.

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#WW: Beached/Reading, with #JustOneParagraph

This week's Linked-Up Wordless Wednesday prompt is "Beach Reading." Since I rarely go to the beach at all, and I do most of my reading indoors, I'm mixing things up a little...

On a related note, I'm in the process of "beaching" a whole lot of books--in the "beached whale" sense. I'm winnowing the "to be read" collection of books that are probably not to be read after all, and clearing out the ones that didn't make it to the keeper shelf after I did read them. If you're in the Greater Los Angeles Area and up for some free books, you're invited to my Big Book Purge Giveaway on August 4...but you'll have to come and get the books yourself! Details are on Facebook.

An InLinkz Link-up

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Books on the Move, in #JustOneParagraph

Earlier today, I declared my serious intentions to get a bunch of books out of my house by creating an event on Facebook. I'm repeating myself here, but you can find more details there.

I'm clearing my shelves of books I'll only read once--and books I'll probably never read at all. FREE for the taking--paperbacks, hardcovers, and galleys in a variety of genres and styles (mostly for adult readers, but there may be a few kids' books in the mix). This is not an online or virtual giveaway. If you can come and get 'em, you can leave with as many books as you can carry! Please contact me for the address and directions if you'd like to come and take some books off my hands (and shelves! and tables! and floor!). And please feel free to bring a friend!

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