Charity Girl

I’ve always been a sucker for good historical fiction, even as a kid. And Charity Girl didn’t disappoint. It’s set in Boston during World War I, and we follow Frieda Mintz, a silly, immature, and reckless young woman. Frieda attempts to escape marriage to a much older man, a marriage arranged by her mother for her own financial benefit, by running away and working in a downtown department store. Like most 17 year olds, she’s impetuous and rarely thinks in terms of consequences. After a one night stand with a soldier, she finds herself sick with some sexually transmitted diseases, thus landing on the radar of the Committee on Prevention, tasked with “protecting” soldiers from infected and morally deviant young women. Frieda makes one bad choice after another, and after being sexually assaulted, finally lands in a quarantine detention camp with several other young women, mostly prostitutes, but all infected with some type of STD. All the while, Frieda desperately hangs on to the dream that her rich soldier will come rescue her, that they’ll live happily ever after, that she’ll finally find freedom with the man that she spent one day with.

Every time I tried putting the book down, I found myself reaching for it again and again. And I tried my best to dislike Frieda, with her silly, impulsive and naive ways. But I couldn’t stay angry with her. Sometimes I wanted to shout at her for her stupidity. I often wanted to hug her to help make the pain go away. A few times I wanted to slap some sense into her. But I always liked her. Perhaps because I recognized my own silly 17 year old self, full of unrealistic expectations and unaware that others might have ulterior motives. Or perhaps because it was easy to think of Frieda as a younger sibling, one that needs guidance and experience, but not the hell that she had to face at such a young age. Maybe it’s because I recognized so many friends, past and present, desperate for a man’s attention and willing to overlook even the most blatant lies. Whatever the reason, I fell under Frieda’s spell, wanted for her sake for everything to work out just as she hoped, even though I knew they wouldn’t.

The book ended with a glimpse of Frieda 20 years later, and I got the distinct feeling that I was supposed to think of grown up Frieda as a tragic figure, a woman who never sees her dreams come to fruition, a woman who’s given up hope that her life will be what she wanted it to be. But I fail to see the tragedy there. Frieda landed on her feet. She survived. No, her life doesn’t look like she thought it would, but whose life ever does? Heaven help us if we all fulfilled our 17 year old dreams! I’m sure we’d have lots of rock stars, actresses, models and sports players, but not much responsibility. Dreams change. And that’s a good thing. How sad if all still clung to our seventeen year old selves, never matured, never grew. The tragedy isn’t that Frieda’s life turned out differently than she wanted. The tragedy is that she couldn't let go of her childish vision of the perfect life long enough to recognize the beauty of the life she ended up with.