Charity Girl - by Michael Lowenthal (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"Highly accomplished, Charity Girl is a gift to all readers of quality historical and literary fiction." --Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow

"A deeply affecting and important novel. . . . Michael Lowenthal at a stroke establishes himself as a significant voice in American fiction." --Jay Parini

"Lowenthal...has accomplished the difficult feat of marrying the facts of history with the details that make a fictional life come alive. That few readers of Lowenthal's deserving novel will ever have heard of the detention of 'charity girls' is astonishing. That Lowenthal has made us aware of them is nothing short of a gift." The Washington Post

"Charity Girl" tells a deeply disturbing story with compassion and sly cleverness.
Boston Globe

Lowenthal deftly personalizes a tragic story... Rich in period detail, swift-paced prose and deserved political outrage.
Kirkus Reviews, Starred

Lowenthal's narrative style is perfect for a heroine who suffers but remains a survivor, striking just the right mix of dark and light, worldly and innocent.
The New York Times Book Review --