Charity Girl (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780618919789)

During World War I, seventeen-year-old Frieda Mintz secures a job at a Boston department store and strikes out on her own, escaping her repressive Jewish mother and marriage to a wealthy widower twice her age. Determined to find love on her own terms, she is intoxicated by her newfound freedom and the patriotic fervor of the day. That is, until a soldier reports her as his last sexual contact, sweeping her up in the government's wartime crusade against venereal disease. Quarantined in a detention center, Frieda finds in the Home's confines a group of brash, unforgettable women who help her see the way to a new kind of independence.

Charity Girl is based on a little-known chapter in American history that saw fifteen thousand women across the nation incarcerated. Like When the Emperor Was Divine, Lowenthal's poignant, provocative novel will leave readers moved - and astonished by the shameful facts that inspired it.

Author: Michael Lowenthal
ISBN-10: 0618919783
ISBN-13: 9780618919789
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Language: English
Published: 01/08/2008
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.72lbs
Size: 8.25h x 5.43w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 01/13/2008 pg. 32