Back in 2015, I was completely blown away by Elizabeth's novel, "The Signature Of All Things." Four years later, here she is with "City Girls," and I am again dazzled by her effort. The novel is a panoramic history of New York City, from about 1940 to the present. The glamour and the tawdriness of it all are portrayed in great dramatic and descriptive detail,
Vivian Morris, a young girl from a wealthy upstate family in Clinton, New York, flunks out of Vassar College, where tradition dictates she go, in order to become a successful Trophy Wife of the time. Her parents and brother are dowdy and conventional; Vivian clearly is not, so when she flunks, she is sent to Manhattan, to live with her father's estranged sister, Peg Buell, who runs a small theater company called The Lily Playhouse. There, Vivian is drawn to the world of theater, not so much performing, but costuming; she is a whiz with a sewing machine. Like all girls dreaming of New York, Vivian has affairs, gets into a heated scandal, makes friends, loses some, and then reinvents herself all over again.
Written in the form of a memoir letter to her sort of (and you have to read the entire book to get what that means) stepdaughter, Angela, Vivian's story is for girls of all types, theater lovers, and not. I am telling you, gay guys will just eat this novel up, not to mention that they will be actually absorbing genuinely good literature, because Gilbert is such an excellent and meticulous writer, who researched her subject thoroughly.
I almost wish it had kept going on; that is how good it was. I can see this on my Ten Best at year's end.
Go out and grab a copy, at once, and read it!
It is fit for queens and consorts, alike!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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