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The Hard-Boiled Virgin
When it first appeared in 1926, The Hard-Boiled Virgin was hailed by novelist James Branch Cabell as "the most brilliant, the most candid, the most civilized, and most profound book yet written by any American woman". It is a semiautobiographical novel about Atlantan Katharine Faraday, who, after numerous anguishing relations with men, chooses a career and independence over marriage and motherhood.
Though somewhat avant garde, with its impressionistic air, absence of dialogue, and evocations of Virginia Woolf, The Hard-Boiled Virgin posed enough of a threat to middle class attitudes toward women to be banned in Boston. Intending her novel to undermine the white, tradition-bound, upper-class Atlanta society into which she was born, Frances Newman commented that she discovered that she "was going to write a novel about a girl who began by believing every thing her family and her teachers said to her, and who ended by disbelieving most of those things".
Though somewhat avant garde, with its impressionistic air, absence of dialogue, and evocations of Virginia Woolf, The Hard-Boiled Virgin posed enough of a threat to middle class attitudes toward women to be banned in Boston. Intending her novel to undermine the white, tradition-bound, upper-class Atlanta society into which she was born, Frances Newman commented that she discovered that she "was going to write a novel about a girl who began by believing every thing her family and her teachers said to her, and who ended by disbelieving most of those things".
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
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About the author
Frances Newman
10 booksAmerican novelist and short-story writer, praised by H.L. Mencken, Sherwood Anderson, and James Branch Cabell. Her books were banned in Boston.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 11, 2021
I really enjoyed this novel. The writing style was interesting but not distracting, and the sardonic look at the expectations of early-twentieth-century white southern womanhood was fun.
May 29, 2014
One of my favorite all time books. This is not an easy read, despite having no plot twists to follow, no layers of intrigue to unravel. It is a straightforward telling of a life, showing all the beauty of rich, complex language combined with meticulously observed details about emotion and behavior. Should be a standard of the golden era of southern literature, except that she is too frank, I think, about women's thoughts. The men of her time simply couldn't handle it. A book to read when you want to savor words.
June 11, 2012
Anne Firor Scott, in her Foreword to this edition of The Hard-Boiled Virgin, says:
Who needs enemies?
Who should be more insulted, the author or her readers?
Comparisons to Virginia Woolf appear on the back cover and in the Foreword and I haven't noticed that Woolf is begging for readers.
I wonder whether it might be the subject matter. The Virgin sends up the rigid social dogma of white Atlanta in the early part of the 20th Century -- the debutante world. I think many of us may know more about Bloomsbury society than about that of the Southern "aristocracy."
I saw what may have been the tail-end of that world when I used to sit in the lobby of the Phoenix Hotel on Main Street in Lexington -- a popular rendezvous point for families who'd come to town to shop or go to a Univ Ky ballgame -- and watch the be-gowned girls parade through on the arms of their escorts.
It did take me a little while to figure out how Newman worked. Characters are never explained or described except through the pov of the protagonist Katherine Farraday, so it took me a while to figure out that she had a mother and two older, more beautiful sisters. And that seeing her father in his nightshirt meant that she saw -- and understood -- more than his bony knees.
Apparently Atlanta belles were not to know a thing about sex until they were wed to a husband of the right kind.
But Katherine Farraday does note that her friend Sarah had laid
The box fails.
Sexual desire is described as a "radiant spray" that arises from below the "thin brown line" that divides Katherine's belly. I found the device both coy and frank.
I found it a very readable novel, but then I loved Catch-22 and all of Faulkner.
I loved it for passages such as this:
This novel doesn't deal with racism, "servants" barely make an appearance in its pages. The Foreword goes out of its way to explain that the novel isn't feminist. Or at least that Newman would not have wanted to write a "feminist" novel.
It is a highly intelligent send-up of an entirely fatuous society. A descendant of Jane Austen perhaps. Or perhaps out of Jane Austen by Virgina Woolf.
It is what Francis Newman set out to write: "a novel about a girl who begins by believing everything her family and her teachers said to her and who ended by disbelieving most of those things."
As it is, [Newman's] novels, though they are meticulously crafted, and filled with brilliant insights, require intense concentration of the reader who may, in the end, decide the effort was not worth it.
Who needs enemies?
Who should be more insulted, the author or her readers?
Comparisons to Virginia Woolf appear on the back cover and in the Foreword and I haven't noticed that Woolf is begging for readers.
I wonder whether it might be the subject matter. The Virgin sends up the rigid social dogma of white Atlanta in the early part of the 20th Century -- the debutante world. I think many of us may know more about Bloomsbury society than about that of the Southern "aristocracy."
I saw what may have been the tail-end of that world when I used to sit in the lobby of the Phoenix Hotel on Main Street in Lexington -- a popular rendezvous point for families who'd come to town to shop or go to a Univ Ky ballgame -- and watch the be-gowned girls parade through on the arms of their escorts.
It did take me a little while to figure out how Newman worked. Characters are never explained or described except through the pov of the protagonist Katherine Farraday, so it took me a while to figure out that she had a mother and two older, more beautiful sisters. And that seeing her father in his nightshirt meant that she saw -- and understood -- more than his bony knees.
Apparently Atlanta belles were not to know a thing about sex until they were wed to a husband of the right kind.
But Katherine Farraday does note that her friend Sarah had laid
the little gray box . . . in her bag beside her bridal gown and her bridal neglige, and she had not forgotten Sarah Rutledge's assurance that it would delay the advent of Rutledge Simpson until he could be born in the quarters of a first lieutenant.
The box fails.
Sexual desire is described as a "radiant spray" that arises from below the "thin brown line" that divides Katherine's belly. I found the device both coy and frank.
I found it a very readable novel, but then I loved Catch-22 and all of Faulkner.
I loved it for passages such as this:
She was able to look away from Edward Cabot long enough to see that a great many young gentlemen and young ladies of the right kind had eyes like pale hot water and faces like dull oak frames, and that when they were circling the ball-room together between the somewhat stately dances, they looked exactly like an unpatronized merry-go-round in the country of the Houyhyhnms.
This novel doesn't deal with racism, "servants" barely make an appearance in its pages. The Foreword goes out of its way to explain that the novel isn't feminist. Or at least that Newman would not have wanted to write a "feminist" novel.
It is a highly intelligent send-up of an entirely fatuous society. A descendant of Jane Austen perhaps. Or perhaps out of Jane Austen by Virgina Woolf.
It is what Francis Newman set out to write: "a novel about a girl who begins by believing everything her family and her teachers said to her and who ended by disbelieving most of those things."
January 24, 2024
COMPLETED JUNE 2017. ⭐⭐⭐⭐/☆
Plot: a high-society girl too blunt for marriage fights a losing battle to find a husband, while realizing that the world & its rules about women are rather silly.
Setting: Atlanta 1910s & 1920s, Charleston, New York, Europe.
Style: Stream of consciousness, third person limited in the point of view of Katherine Faraday from childhood through adulthood. The author doesn’t break up paragraphs or chapters. She just writes in a long stream, stopping where she pleases and starting a new block. That seems confusing, but it’s weird and unique, & she breaks often enough to give you a breath. The delivery is nearly first person, yet isn’t! She always refers to Katherine {the protagonist} by her full name – Katherine Faraday. That makes the story feel NEARLY sing-song in the best way. “See Katherine Faraday walk. See Katherine Faraday run.” It reads a bit like that in the beginning, which is really incongruous because Katherine Faraday is actually growing throughout the novel, well beyond the confines of such a sing-songy script. So it’s like the style itself is trying to keep her in a box, & she is simultaneously breaking out if it. LOVE THAT.
⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹
Plot: a high-society girl too blunt for marriage fights a losing battle to find a husband, while realizing that the world & its rules about women are rather silly.
Setting: Atlanta 1910s & 1920s, Charleston, New York, Europe.
Style: Stream of consciousness, third person limited in the point of view of Katherine Faraday from childhood through adulthood. The author doesn’t break up paragraphs or chapters. She just writes in a long stream, stopping where she pleases and starting a new block. That seems confusing, but it’s weird and unique, & she breaks often enough to give you a breath. The delivery is nearly first person, yet isn’t! She always refers to Katherine {the protagonist} by her full name – Katherine Faraday. That makes the story feel NEARLY sing-song in the best way. “See Katherine Faraday walk. See Katherine Faraday run.” It reads a bit like that in the beginning, which is really incongruous because Katherine Faraday is actually growing throughout the novel, well beyond the confines of such a sing-songy script. So it’s like the style itself is trying to keep her in a box, & she is simultaneously breaking out if it. LOVE THAT.
⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹
November 2, 2007
One of my favorite all-time books. It is not an easy read, but her dense prose style is like taking a bubble bath to me. You sink into her words and feel luxurious. I love an author who loves language. The Hard-Boiled Virgin is also a brilliant piece of satire, with no one spared. The author lampoons herself as a teen, other authors, and most certainly her rigid social strata. She excels at the art of euphemism, to hilarious effect. I think perhaps southern readers might enjoy her brand of wit more, but I would love to be told I'm wrong.
June 29, 2009
This is my all-time favorite book, but it is not for everyone. Newman uses long, dense sentences and penchant for sarcastic euphemism to skewer early 20th century society in Atlanta, Georgia. It is a novel that is uniquely Southern, but also uniquely of its time. While I've read reviews from the time which disdain her oblique and occasionally murky style, wading through her jungle of words was graet fun for me. Newman is smart and incredibly funny in this dry, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews