Guess What Novel Turns 50 This Year????????????????????????

                                       That is right, darlings!!!!!!!!  Judith Rossner's "Looking For Mr. Goodbar" was published fifty years ago this year.  It changed the lives of New York career girls forever and influenced future ones like me to be careful of who you hooked up with.

                                         You see, back in what today's young folk would call the Dark Ages, bars and public places was where people who wanted to "hooked up."  The advantage was the person was standing right in front of you, offering some sort of chance for evaluation.  One could still be right or wrong, but there was more truth to this than a fake history on the internet.

                                            No one thought of the novel at the time as a sort of "In Cold Blood," but it was actually based on the real-life murder of Roseann Quinn, a Bronx born, Mine Hill, New Jersey raised schoolteacher, who frequented singles bars, looking for guys.  Like so many of us, she came to Manhattan to seek the excitement the suburbs did not provide. The apartment she lived in was on West 72nd Street, and the bar was right across the street, and was known as Tweeds, at the time of its closing.  I used to frequent Tweeds and write down what I saw; the ghosts of this murder haunted the place, as I watched all the prostitutes interacting with the Johns.

                                             The novel, which holds up today, was a real slice of New York City life, a cautionary tale for both single women and men.  And those in the gay scene, too.

                                               So much has changed since this novel was published.  It could be looked upon as a period piece, but the threat of aberrant people being out there is still real, and for those who troll, darlings, whom are you really seeing on the internet?  Or is he/she for real?

                                                 Which is why Rossner's novel is still as compelling as ever.  Any single person at any time could make the wrong choice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                     Don't let it be you, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!