Savage Girl
Jean Zimmerman, 2014
Penguin Group USA
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670014859
Summary
A riveting tale from the author of The Orphanmaster about a wild girl from Nevada who lands in Manhattan’s Gilded Age society.
Jean Zimmerman’s new novel tells of the dramatic events that transpire when an alluring, blazingly smart eighteen-year-old girl named Bronwyn, reputedly raised by wolves in the wilds of Nevada, is adopted in 1875 by the Delegates, an outlandishly wealthy Manhattan couple, and taken back East to be civilized and introduced into high society.
Bronwyn hits the highly mannered world of Edith Whartonera Manhattan like a bomb. A series of suitors, both young and old, find her irresistible, but the willful girl’s illicit lovers begin to turn up murdered.
Zimmerman’s tale is narrated by the Delegate’s son, a Harvard anatomy student. The tormented, self-dramatizing Hugo Delegate speaks from a prison cell where he is prepared to take the fall for his beloved Savage Girl. This narrative—a love story and a mystery with a powerful sense of fable—is his confession. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1957
• Raised—Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in Ossining, New York
Jean Zimmerman is an American author, poet and historian. A graduate of Barnard College, Jean Zimmerman earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in poetry from the Columbia University School of the Arts, and was awarded a New York State Fine Arts grant in 1983.
Zimmerman's first book, Breaking With Tradition: Women and Work, the New Facts of Life (1992), was coauthored with Felice N. Schwartz. It was based on the Harvard Business Review article that ignited the "mommy track" debate. Her first solo work was Tailspin: Women at War in the Wake of Tailhook (1995) which focused on the Tailhook Association scandal and the crucial link between sexual harassment and the role of women as warriors.
With husband Gil Reavill as co-author, Zimmerman published Raising Our Athletic Daughters: How Sports Can Build Self-Esteem and Save Girls’ Lives (Doubleday, 1998), which was a Finalist for the 1999 Books for a Better Life Award sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Zimmerman's next book, Made from Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth (2003), was an exploration of homemaking from a feminist perspective.
Another book, The Women of the House: How a Colonial She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune, and a Dynasty (2006), offers a historical portrait of women in pre-Revolutionary New York, with specific reference to Philipse Manor Hall and Philipsburg Manor House. Love, Fiercely: A Gilded Age Romance is a dual biography of Edith Minturn Stokes and Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, a nineteenth-century couple known for philanthropy, architecture and documenting New York City history.
In 2012, Zimmerman published her first historical novel The Orphan Master, set in 17th century New Amsterdam. The book has been optioned for a film. Her 2014 novel, Savage Girl, is about a ferral girl, reputedly raised by wolves, who is adopted by a couple living in New York during the Gilded Age. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/24/2014.)
Book Reviews
Sooner or later, a historical crime novel is bound to drag you down some dark alley and into the nastiest, most lawless precincts of the period. Jean Zimmerman followed this tradition in her first novel, The Orphanmaster, a descent into the hellish criminal haunts of 17th-century New Amsterdam. In Savage Girl, this canny author puts all that aside and turns to the Gilded Age for a sweeping narrative, set within the cloistered ranks of high society in 19th-century Manhattan, that raises touchy questions about what it means to be civilized.
New York Times Book Review
Zimmerman’s second novel takes us on an over-the-top romp through 1870s America...consider this the compulsively readable love child of Edith Wharton and Edgar Allen Poe.
Oprah.com
(Starred review.) The prologue of Zimmerman’s superior historical thriller will suck most readers in instantly.... Hugo, a Harvard student...becomes fascinated with...the so-called Savage Girl, allegedly raised by wolves. Hugo’s parents decide to civilize the girl, and introduce her into society on their return to New York. Zimmerman... combin[es] suspense with an unsettling look into a tormented mind.
Publishers Weekly
Wealthy socialite Hugo Delegate and his family rescue the "Savage Girl" from a carnival...[and she] instantly captivates Hugo with her boldness and energy.... Most of the novel is narrated by Hugo recounting events in an extended flashback, which feels jarring and out of place. More successful are the action-packed final chapters. —Laurel Bliss, San Diego State Univ. Lib.
Library Journal
Suffused with a gothic aura of dark suspense, this is a finely wrought psychological work, rich with historical detail. Zimmerman’s settings spring off the page.... Immensely readable, Savage Girl takes the reader by the throat and doesn’t let go.
Booklist
A formal, measured tempo only heightens the tension.... Is Bronwyn, with her animallike instincts, the killer? Or is it Hugo...? Neither Hugo nor the reader is sure right up to the satisfying if melodramatic end. Zimmerman's dark comedy of manners is an obvious homage to Edith Wharton, a rip-roaring murder mystery...and a wonderfully detailed portrait of the political, economic and philosophical issues driving post–Civil War America.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. From the first moment he hears of her, Hugo is conflicted about the concept of a "savage girl." What draws him to her and what troubles him specifically?
2. How does Bronwyn benefit, if at all, from being adopted by the Delegates?
3. Hugo is an anatomy student at Harvard. What role does this knowledge play throughout the story?
4. Freddy Delegate is said to "collect" people. Who does he collect and for what purpose?
5. How does the Delegates’ wealth protect them? How does it hurt them?
6. There are overt references in Savage Girl to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. What other literary parallels could you draw between this story and others?
7. Delegate is not sure whether he committed the murder of Bev Willets because of his memory lapses, diagnosed as neurasthenia. What sort of diagnosis might he be given today?
8. Zmmerman finds contemporary themes in her historic story, such as the concentration of wealth among the select few and a tabloid celebrity culture. What are some other themes that might resonate with today’s readers?
9. One of the great moments of the Gilded Age was the emergence of Darwin’s theory and the question of nature versus nurture. How does the book explore this issue, and what is your own personal belief?
10. Hugo’s mental health issues make him something of an unreliable narrator at times. Where in the story did you most question his version of reality?
11. What does the future hold for Hugo and Bronwyn at the book’s end?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)