THE PRETENDERS

by Gwen Davis ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 29, 1969

Sprawling across more than 500 pages, this raunch-styled novel is far brassier, if not outright filthier, than anything Gwen Davis has done and deals primarily with three girls (Louise, Kate and Maggie) on the make and making out. Sometimes there might be a twinge of repugnance with someone like Harry Bell, too rich to have class but really unable to buy love, with whose funeral the book begins. Louise, a columnist, thirty-three, who unfortunately refers to herself as Lulu when she's depressed, moves on finally to Charley, a healthy type; Maggie, unstable from college days on, annexes the totally emasculated (drugs and his mother) Algernon, finally marries a gynecologist and dreams up the child she's carrying. Kate and David do have a baby, lose it when Maggie, her phantom pregnancy ended, grabs it and jumps to their death. . . . The most that can be said for this is that it's propelled with a degree of professionalism and if it could be read blind-folded, it wouldn't sound very different from one of Jacqueline Susann's schlockdolagers.

Pub Date: May 29, 1969

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: World

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1969

Categories: FICTION