It’s all about HER! Vivian Morris is the complete focus of Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, City of Girls. It is presented as a memoir told by Vivian to a woman named Angela, whose father was an important man in Vivian’s life (at first I somehow thought Angela might be Vivian’s daughter – but no, despite decades filled with dozens (hundreds?) of sexual connections, Vivian has never given birth. The story follows Vivian’s life from the time she leaves her childhood home in a small town in New York (after flunking out of Vassar) and is shipped off to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a somewhat rundown theater in New York. For the next few years, Vivian hangs out with showgirls and actors and utilizes one of her two skills: designing and sewing costumes for the actors and dancers in the shows (more about her OTHER skill later).
Vivian was born in 1920 into a classic upper-middle-class WASP family, and as she becomes a young woman, she enthusiastically lives her life on her own terms. Her family isn’t given to discussing important topics, but then neither is society in general: after a huge scandal involving a threesome with her, a showgirl, and a famous actor (complete with photos and Walter Winchell), Vivian has to leave New York and return to her parents’ home. “…White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. You need to understand that we have only one central rule of engagement, and here it is: This matter must never be spoken of again. We WASPs can apply that rile to anything—from a moment of awkwardness at the dinner table to a relative’s suicide. Asking no further questions is the song of my people.”
Her other skill (in addition to sewing) is having sex with lots of men, and she pursues this relentlessly as she spends most of her evenings out on the town. The descriptions of life in New York just before World War II are fascinating, and Ms. Gilbert’s research into the history of the theater district and daily life in the City during the War is evident.
Vivian is oblivious to her white privilege, both unaware and mostly uncaring about nearly everyone but herself and a very few people whose lives intersect with hers. She says as she thinks back, She sees some of the dark side of life, particularly when women in the theater, including her closest friend, are victims of violence“…it’s appalling to realize that this kind of violence seemed so commonplace back then…” and it “…was long before there was any sort of public conversation about such dark subjects—and thus we had no private conversations about them, either.”
She has to return to her parents’ home after she is pretty much run out of town in shame (unknown to her parents, who thought she got homesick!), Vivian drifts along, settling into a boring job and a boring relationship. She nearly marries, as she “…slid toward marriage, like a car sliding off the road on a scree of loose gravel.”
After a few celibate years, Vivian returns to New York and her aunt’s world, and learns many life lessons as she accepts herself, continuing her easy way with many men. She realizes it “…was more important for me to feel free than safe.” Despite an incident when she was leaving New York when she was nearly overwhelmed by shame as she heard the way she was seen by outsiders, she comes to know that “After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries.” And she claims that she has “…learned this truth: when women are gathered together with no men around, they don’t have to be anything in particular: they can just be.”
So there is a lot to love about Vivian, and about her world. She really is completely self-absorbed, and as she tells her life story, readers will either love her or not (and either would be just fine with her!). The second phase of her life, as she becomes self-sufficient and creates her own family of choice, is completely different from her early wild years, and yet it is totally a straight line from one to the other. In some ways, I loved Vivian, although I never really got how she could remain so oblivious to the world around her, other than how it directly affected HER. From beginning to end, it is all about her. So while I didn’t really LIKE her, the story is totally true to who she is, and Ms. Gilbert is a great storyteller who is skilled at bringing her characters to life. Thanks to Penguin Group/Riverhead Books and NetGalley for providing a copy of City of Girls in exchange for my honest review. Four and a half stars. Probably would have been a five, but I just didn’t like her! Thereby indicating the author’s skill at creating a character so well, so I just upgraded it to five stars!