![]() ![]() "Sleeping with men - lots of men - that's more or less my way of life," she insists. But the issue of female pleasure becomes the novel's central, surprisingly pleasureless theme. One of Vivian's sexcapades eventually sparks a crisis that disrupts several lives and leaves a wound that won't be healed for decades. "I wanted to be around sex constantly," she says. "It was a living animation of glamour and grit and mayhem and fun." Without a curfew or any supervision beyond her aunt's bohemian encouragement, she lives above the theater with an adventurous showgirl who teaches her how to drink, how to flirt and how to bed as many men as possible. ![]() "Lily Playhouse was unlike any world I'd ever inhabited," she says. Meanwhile, Vivian is initiated into a life she could never have imagined back with her stodgy parents. The show is a ridiculous melodrama about fortunes lost and found and a street-smart kid who gets the girl, but Gilbert belts out the play's creation and performance with just the right brassy verve. In exchange for room and board, she agrees to star in a souped-up production at the theater called City of Girls. The central action involves a great British actress, an old friend of Aunt Peg, who gets stranded in New York by the war in Europe. Still, the first half is full of entertaining scenes spun with the quick-witted spirit of Rosalind Russell. ![]()
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