THE GIRL IN THE SPIKE-HEELED SHOES

Without the warmth, but with the compassion of The Family Members, this tells wit spare realism of Maybelle Reardon, whose father, a drinking Irishman, and mother, a waitres left her orphaned at fourteen. Unloved, unwanted, Maybelle is put out to board and by the time she is seventeen is known for her easy virtue, her spike-heeled shoes. Drifting, as a dance partner across the country, through jobs and through men, Maybelle finally gets her chance when she meets Jim, honest, hard-working, tender. With her marriage, and the two babies that follows, Maybelle finds the life she has always wanted, loses it however when Jim is drafted and she learns that he has gone AWOL over another woman. It is the Catholic Church however which gives her back her security and her faith in her husband... A sorry, shabby picture of a girl that never had a chance- which- even if accurate- is very limited in its appeal.