The New Girls

This article is about the 1979 novel. For the television series, see New Girl.

First edition
(publ. G. P. Putnam's Sons)

The New Girls is a 1979 novel by American author Beth Gutcheon.

The novel, which describes the experiences of five young women in 1960s America, ^[1] was based on Gutcheon's experiences at Miss Porter's School. ^[2] Some characters experience anorexia over the course of the novel. ^[3] It also describes the head of school's adverse reaction to the use of the term "diaphragm" in a student play. ^[4]

Spieler likens it to works such as The Secret History , Gilmore Girls , and Gossip Girl , as all these texts revolve around an outsider entering into an elite boarding school environment. ^[5]

Lisa Birnbach, in a follow-up to The Official Preppy Handbook , includes The New Girls on "the true prep master reading list". ^[6]

References

1. Torkildson, Sandi (1996). "HARPERPERENNIAL". Feminist Bookstore News: Feminist Bookstore News. 19 (2): 130. JSTOR   community.28036375.
2. Carter, Graydon (August 15, 2017). Vanity Fair's Schools For Scandal: The Inside Dramas at 16 of America's Most Elite Campuses—Plus Oxford!. Simon and Schuster. p. 97. ISBN   978-1-5011-7374-5.
3. White 1985, p. 177.
4. White 1985, p. 186.
5. Spieler, Sophie (May 17, 2014). "Between Meritocracy and the Old Boy Network: Elite Education in Contemporary American Literature". Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies. 15 (1): 4. doi:10.5283/COPAS.186.
6. Birnbach, Lisa; Kidd, Chip (2010). True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 180. ISBN   978-0-307-59421-1. OCLC   668227883.

Sources

• White, Barbara Anne (1985). Growing Up Female: Adolescent Girlhood in American Fiction . Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN   9780313250651. OCLC   1149302332.

Further reading

• Gutcheon, Beth Richardson (1996). The New Girls . New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN   9780060977023. OCLC   1150870181 – via Internet Archive.