When Looking For Mrs. Goodbar was published in 1975 it was such a sensational hit that I put off reading because I assumed it would be not much more than trendy titillation. When I finally got to it I was stunned by how fine a writer Judith Rossner was and how truly her novel reflected the times.
Based on a particularly ugly murder in New York City, Rossner offers us the life of one Theresa Dunn, a lower class but good looking Irish Catholic teacher much respected by her colleagues and much pursued by the men she finds in the singles bars she haunts looking for sex and a release from her self-loathing and depression, the by-product (she has always thought) of polio that left her with a warped spine. Even though surgery corrected the spine, it did not correct her image of herself as as a freak, especially when she contrasts herself with her glamorous sister.
To me this is the definitive novel of the 70s, the so-called "me" decade. Theresa has always sought out men she believes can rescue her in some way--from the bastard professor she had an affair with as a student to the numerous hot shots of various kinds (Madison Avenue, theater) she meets on her nightly excursions. Her illusion is the illusion of the decade, as Rossner suggests, that the freedom she revels in is a spiritual prison. Waiting in the wings was AIDs of course.
Then comes the time when she meets the drifter who will kill her the very night he meets her. Rossner, both her and in all of her novels, demonstrates that serious literature can find mass appeal when the story is as powerful as this one. An overplayed movie version appeared soon after publication of the book but its ham-handedness destroyed the subtle and ironic truths of Rossner's brilliant novel.
5 comments:
This was one of those books that swept me away when I read it. I should read it again. Thanks.
I never read the book and only remember the film. Post-Annie Hall Diane Keaton played the main character. Miscast maybe? If I remember it right, the film (in its own way) probably does a good job of capturing that strange decade, too.
I remember reading this when it came out and liking it. I was about 15 at the time. I liked it enough to read another of her novels called "Attachments" about Siamese-Twins. It was another good read.
The movie based on the novel "Goodbar" was kind of a bust, though, imo.
I remember something Judith Rossner said about her entire body of work, not just GOODBAR: She wrote about the things women will do (and would be willing to do) just to "have a warm body close by." I hope times have changed since 1975 when I read this book (and, incidently, graduated from high school), but I look around me and I'm not sure.
During a visit some years ago to Edgar Week in NYC, I hung out with S.J. Rozan one day, where she took me to the Dakota where John Lennon was shot, and then she took me to the same bar where the real victim of "Goodbar" was picked up and murdered, and where we both had cheeseburgers...
Good times, good times...
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