A woman reminisces about her unconventional life in Elizabeth Gilbert’s
exhilarating third novel. After Vivian Morris flunks out of Vassar in
the early ’40s, her exasperated parents send her to live with her aunt,
who runs a shabby theater in New York. So begins Vivian’s adventure of
self-discovery, which includes crafting showstopping costumes from
tattered clothing, painting the town red with a lascivious showgirl,
falling for a charismatic Hell’s Kitchen boy, and working at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard during the war. Reading City of Girls is a
giddy pleasure—Gilbert’s lusty, independent heroine explodes the false
and harmful dichotomy of “good” versus “bad” girls.
