City of Girls: A Novel

In City of Girls, Vivian Morris arrives in 1940 New York at nineteen, expelled from Vassar with a flair for costume design but little else; she lands at the Lily Playhouse, a rundown theater run by her aunt Peg, where showgirls strut and seamstresses scheme under the shadow of Broadway's brighter lights. Gilbert conjures this world with meticulous, sensory glee—the swish of feather boas, the sour tang of Prohibition-era gin, the electric buzz of a city hurtling toward war. Vivian's voice, filtered through her ninety-five-year-old self corresponding with a distant acquaintance, frames the narrative as a rollicking memoir; 'I have been a bad girl all my life,' she declares early on, setting the tone for a story that revels in mischief over morality.

The novel's formal ingenuity lies in its dual chronology: the bulk unfolds as Vivian's youthful escapades—affairs with actors and audience members alike, hasty designs for tawdry revues—while epistolary interludes from her elder perspective impose a rueful hindsight. This structure mirrors the theater itself, all artifice and revelation; Gilbert's prose dances with slangy vernacular ('dame,' 'swell,' 'hep cat'), evoking the era without caricature. What the book does so deftly is reclaim female promiscuity not as vice but as vital education; Vivian's conquests, from the brooding Edna Parker Watson to the magnetic Olive Thompson, teach her the contours of desire, friendship, and forgiveness in a world that punishes women's appetites.

Gilbert's theater milieu pulses with invention—the Lily's production of *City of Girls*, a patriotic burlesque gone awry, becomes a microcosm for the novel's themes of reinvention and resilience. Amid wartime rationing and jazz-soaked nights, Vivian evolves from wide-eyed ingenue to seasoned survivor, her costumes literalizing the idea of self-fashioning. The ensemble cast shines: Peg's weary optimism, Billy Buxton's doomed charisma, Gladys's loyal vulgarity—each a thread in Gilbert's tapestry of misfits who build a makeshift family. Formally, the novel's rhythm mimics a revue's acts: boisterous numbers yielding to quieter codas, much like Vivian's path from hedonism to hard-won clarity.

Yet for all its glitter, City of Girls falters in pacing; the first two hundred fifty pages frolic in superficial high spirits—endless parties, couplings, and quips—with Vivian's growth deferred until a scandalous incident forces reckoning. This protracted setup, while immersive, borders on indulgence; the revelry feels like a feature-length overture, delaying the novel's deeper emotional architecture until its somber second act. Gilbert's commitment to unhurried world-building yields vividness but sacrifices momentum—what begins as a sparkling ensemble piece narrows too abruptly to personal catharsis, leaving the structure feeling unbalanced, as if the playwright lingered too long in the chorus line before the solo.

Ultimately, City of Girls affirms that a full life need not be a virtuous one; Vivian's summation—'You don't have to be a good girl to be a good person'—resonates as both thesis and triumph. Gilbert, returning to fiction after memoirs, proves her range: this is no Eat Pray Love redux but a bolder, bawdier hymn to autonomy. Readers will emerge charmed by its generosity, if occasionally impatient with its sprawl; it stands as a major ode to living large, flaws and all.