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GROWING UP FEMALE STORIES BY WOMEN WRITERS FROM THE AMERICAN MOSAIC Edited by Susan Cahill This extraordinary collection of 23 short pieces of fiction and autobiographical narrative focuses on the passage from girlhood to womanhood in late twentieth-century America. A wide range of voices from some of the most exciting women authors at work today reflect the geographical, cultural, and class diversity that have always been the truth of American life. The adolescent girls in these selections are poor and white..., middle-class black..., are privileged latinas.., and come from a variety of other backgrounds that are meaningfully explored. Their characters examine their own sexuality, get pregnant, run away from home, and hunger for romantic love. They cling to their wildest dreams, even when their choices are limited by gender, race, or poverty. They fumble, grope, and yearn. Often irreverent, funny, and candid, this is transcendent fiction that resonates with both the individual and universal experiences of becoming a woman. VITO LOVES GERALDINE Janice Eidus And I began to wait. But a couple of weeks after I moved into the apartment I couldn't take not telling anyone. I felt like I'd scream or do something crazy if I didn't confide in someone. So I told Pop. Pop wore shiny black suits and black shirts with white ties and a big diamond ring on his pinky finger and he didn't have a steady job like my father who delivered hot dogs by truck to restaurants all over the Bronx, or like Vito's father who was a construction worker. I figured that if anyone knew the way the world worked, it as Pop. He promised he'd never tell, and he twirled his black mustache and said, "Geraldine Rizzoli, you're like my own daughter, like my flesh and blood, and I'm sorry you lost your cherry before you got married but if you want to wait for Vito, wait." (excerpt from the O. Henry Prize-winning story, VITO LOVES GERALDINE) © Janice Eidus |
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