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Glimmering Girls: A Novel of the Fifties is set in a Florida university during those repressive years when women were near-prisoners in college dorms, when their virtue was constantly guarded, and in particular in that year (1959) when all gay teachers were purged from the university in an overnight sting instigated by the Johns Committee (appointed by the state senate to investigate homosexuals, particularly in the educational community).Francie, the young Jewish heroine who dreams of freedom (both of mind and body), meets two female students who invite her to move with them off campus (unheard of in those times) to share a house with a pair of enigmatic, mysterious, attractive twin men and a third man who is the lover of one of the young women.Francie’s evolution is described in the ensuing chapters, her awakening to the sexual realities of the times, her discovery of her own talents and abilities (her induction into Phi Beta Kappa), her complicated romance with a young musician, and her involvement with the twin men with whom she shares a house. Her being Jewish and New York-born separates her from the southern, agrarian culture of the university, and allows her a longer view of her own goals and hopes for her future.
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<div><i>Glimmering Girls</i> tells the story of three extraordinary American women during a time of sexual and cultural repression. Francie and her friends Liz and Amanda are college students, coming of age intellectually, emotionally, and physically in a setting where men were forbidden entry to women's dorm rooms, and women were locked into those rooms after curfew. College life for women was governed by one simple, cardinal rule: Marry Before Graduation or Be Lost Forever. Any thirst for adventure was supposed to be satisfied by the occasional panty raid. Francie and friends, however, find all this hard to swallow, and they resist their appointed futures as elementary school teachers and holders of the precious "MRS" degree. Doing the unthinkable, the three move off campus to live in a house with three men-Liz's boyfriend and two handsome, mysterious Southern twins who fix foreign cars in a shop off campus. There the young women's rebellion against expectations deepens, and they begin the real-world education of pursuing their dreams. Francie yearns to be a writer, and is encouraged by her Russian literature professor. Then she meets Joshua, a talented and dedicated piano student, who presents the ultimate challenge: does she maintain her "virtue," or give in to her sexual desires, finally breaking fully free of repressive "respectability"? Glimmering Girls follows Francie, Liz, and Amanda through this and other discoveries and adventures. Ultimately, each finds a way to live fully at a time when their entire culture seemed arrayed against them.</div>
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