| Vintage Pulp | Apr 19 2022 |
*gasp!* Mom, stop seducing my boyfriends! Or at least wait until I get to have them.
Ann Lawrence's Jezebel's Daughter, which Uni Books put out in 1952, was formerly published in 1934 as Mother and Daughter, which is useful to know if you decide to read this, because it explains the social attitudes on display. If the prose is presumed to be accurately reflective of the social mores of the 1930s, then the lesson is that women had little control over their own bodies. The protagonist Constance Hastings is physically manhandled often, prevented from leaving places when she wants, pushed, pulled, and dragged wherever men want her, kissed against her will, stalked as a matter of course, and grabbed by the shoulders and shaken hard twice just for expressing dissent. In addition, she's seventeen, which strikes us as a young target for men in their thirties.
That's all interesting background, but this is still fiction, so what's most important is the story, and even once you accept the social differences, this one isn't successful. Basically, Constance has a stepmom, Marguerite, whose love of sex makes her constantly cheat on Constance's mostly out-of-town dad. Constance seeks to understand why, and in so doing gets sucked into her stepmom's soap opera of a life. Will she turn into her stepmom? We wish she would have. The book would have been a lot more fun. Luckily, we got it as part of a lot, and every other book in the stack was good or excellent, but we recommend giving this one a pass. The cover art here is generally thought to be by Bernard Safran, a conclusion with which we agree.
That's all interesting background, but this is still fiction, so what's most important is the story, and even once you accept the social differences, this one isn't successful. Basically, Constance has a stepmom, Marguerite, whose love of sex makes her constantly cheat on Constance's mostly out-of-town dad. Constance seeks to understand why, and in so doing gets sucked into her stepmom's soap opera of a life. Will she turn into her stepmom? We wish she would have. The book would have been a lot more fun. Luckily, we got it as part of a lot, and every other book in the stack was good or excellent, but we recommend giving this one a pass. The cover art here is generally thought to be by Bernard Safran, a conclusion with which we agree.
