APHRODITE AT MID-CENTURY: Growing Up Catholic and Female in Postwar America

by Caryl Rivers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1973

Between Mary McCarthy's Catholic childhood and Eisenhower's era a lot -- in America -- and then again, not much -- in the Church -- had changed. The Church, unliberalized, defender of the Faith and Democracy, believed it better to be a prostitute than Protestant, although Sex, too, was Sin. (Caryl wondered: what word rhymed with ""Venus""?) Coming of age in Silver Springs, Maryland, Ms. Rivers thought that the Aphrodite she wasn't (domestic, enticing and ""perfectible"") was a more appealing model than the Virgin Mary. She imbibed both kitsch and dogma, and survived, under their alternating and conflicting influence, the crises and rites of passage that mark an ordinary life. Now married, a journalist and still a Catholic, she's firmly with the feminists. For women (especially Catholic ones) just old and young enough to realize that they too have memories it will all sound amusingly, or perhaps ridiculously, familiar.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION