Wild Girls: A Novel

by Erica Abeel

Three college friends from the 50s blaze their own path in love and work, braving the stifling conventions of the age, and anticipating the social thaw that would arrive ten years later. These “wild girls” pay heavy penalties for living against the grain, but, over the years, rebound and re-set their course, drawing strength from their friendship. The novel follows them from an elite northeastern college, to Paris with Allen Ginsberg, to New York’s avant-garde scene in the early sixties, to a mansion in Newport, to the slopes of Zermatt, to Long Island’s Gold Coast, as it celebrates the nimbleness and vitality of women who defied an entire culture to forge their own journey.


"It’s six A.M. in a Paris just coming awake and she's about to climb to the room of Allen Ginsberg.  She pushes open the door of the Beat Hotel, its squawk denting the morning stillness.  No sign of the concierge.  Too early maybe?  In the ancient, dank stairwell she’s driven back by odors -- from sinks on the landings doubling as pissoirs, “Turkish traps” on little rises off the steps, last night’s cooking cut with sweet ghosts of grass – all of it finished with a grandaddy note that might be rising from cisterns beneath Paris, maybe from the goddamn Romans.  Breathing through her mouth, she cranes up at a nautilus of stairs spiraling to a skylight.  Hard to imagine Puccini’s honey-throated Bohemians here."
 

Genres: Novels

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Erica Abeel, author of Wild Girls, is a novelist, journalist, and former dancer, who has published five books, including Women Like Us (a Book of the Month Club selection), Only When I Laugh, I’ll Call You Tomorrow and Other Lies Between Men and Women, and Conscience Point. Based in New York and Long Island, she writes about women rebels who dared to live against the grain before the upheavals of the 1960s and shows how their lives unfold over subsequent decades. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, and Ms, among many other publications and websites. In addition, Abeel reviews films and interviews directors for The Huffington Post and Film Journal International.

Reviews

[Caeser Pink · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I liked about this book is that it took me inside a world I would have never known about. Wild Girls tells the story of four college friends in the mid 1950s who do not want to lead the traditional life prescribed by society, and instead be artists living a life of adventure and creativity.

The story follows their lives through the decades. The character based on the author spends time with the Beats in Paris during the Beat Hotel period. She has a sort-of affair with Allen Ginsberg. Later she shares an apartment in New York City with a character based on Yoko One. The period with the beats was not very insightful, but the period with Yoko Ono was interesting. This was when Ono was a struggling artists. She described Ono as very focused and determined to achieve success. She turned the apartment into an artists creative space and made her roommate (the author) want to escape the environment.

I can't say that I found the book particularly inspiring. Much of the story is bogged down in the dramas of romantic relationships and doesn't focus on the life of adventure and creativity. There seemed to be a lot of focus on gaining an upper crust social status. I guess it has relevance as a story of early feminists breaking with social custom and becoming working women, but it seemed a rather bourgeois version of living the life of an artist.

[Julianne Arbor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild Girls is one wild ride. Erica Abeel grabs us uninhibitedly by our page-turning hands and dives right in, taking us back in history swimming through a lavish collage of full body experiences. Her colorful characters kick up a riot that you will secretly want to join. Abeel’s wild wordsmithery will also keep you hooked with frequent one-liner gems that will surely go down in literary history.
~ Julianne Skai Arbor, author of TreeGirl: Intimate Encounters with Wild Nature.

[Janet Squires · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abeel effortlessly transports readers from life with the beat poets of Paris in the 1950's to the New York scene of the 1960s as her three heroines break the bonds of convention, that said marriage and motherhood where a woman's proper choice, in pursuit of their artistic dreams. Buoyed by their friendship they find strength in their shared struggle despite the cost they must pay for their determination. Gripping, witty, and funny. Readers will find themselves smiling and nodding in understanding with every page turn.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic!
Three women/college friends in the 1950's struggling to find new roles in a world that expects women to be teachers, nurses or wives. We watch their journey from the 50's to the 90's. Each yearns to express herself creatively and sets out with high ideals and expectations, but where will they go? Read and find out.

[Rhia · Rating 1 out of 5]

So many words, phrases and descriptions are copied word for word from Abeel's previous novel, Women Like Us. I loved that book, and probably read it over a dozen times. But is it plagiarism when you're copying yourself? Really disappointed.

[Holly Groff · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried. I really tried to finish the book. Halfway through I was still trying to figure out the plot. Too avant-garde for my simple taste.

[Norbert Weissberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting and tangy page turner. Gives the lie to all those who thought the Eisenhower years were just a drab sleepwalk. A salacious romp by three brilliant girls. Written by one who was there!

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should not say I finished this book today, as I abandoned it. I had high hopes for this novel based on the description- young women in the 50's trying to make their way after college. All of them are somehow involved in literature and the arts. The writing did not flow for me, making this difficult to read. It seemed as if Abeel was trying to fit in to many pithy lines and references that bogged down the flow of the book.

This got me thinking, as I usually do not abandon books- at my age, should I be more selective in my reading? I have literally hundreds (ok- maybe a few thousand) books to be read at home. I have many classics and prize winners that need to be read. Thoughts?