The New Girls

The New Girls is a 1979 novel by American author Beth Gutcheon.

First edition
(publ. G. P. Putnam's Sons)

The novel, which describes the experiences of five young women in 1960s America,[1] was based on Gutcheon's experiences at Miss Porter's School.[2] Some characters experience anorexia over the course of the novel.[3] It also describes the head of school's adverse reaction to the use of the term "diaphragm" in a student play.[4]

Spieler likens it to works such as The Secret History, Gilmore Girls, and Gossip Girl, as all these texts revolve around an outsider entering into an elite boarding school environment.[5]

Lisa Birnbach, in a follow-up to The Official Preppy Handbook, includes The New Girls on "the true prep master reading list".[6]

References

1. Torkildson, Sandi (1996). "HARPERPERENNIAL". Feminist Bookstore News: Feminist Bookstore News. 19 (2): 130. JSTOR community.28036375.
2. Carter, Graydon (August 15, 2017). Vanity Fair's Schools For Scandal: The Inside Dramas at 16 of America's Most Elite Campuses—Plus Oxford!. Simon and Schuster. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-5011-7374-5.
3. White 1985, p. 177.
4. White 1986, p. 186. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWhite1986 (help)
5. Spieler, Sophie (May 17, 2014). "Between Meritocracy and the Old Boy Network: Elite Education in Contemporary American Literature". Current Objectives of Postgraduate American Studies. 15 (1): 4. doi:10.5283/COPAS.186.
6. Birnbach, Lisa; Kidd, Chip (2010). True Prep: It's a Whole New Old World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-307-59421-1. OCLC 668227883.

Sources

• White, Barbara Anne (1985). Growing Up Female: Adolescent Girlhood in American Fiction. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 9780313250651. OCLC 1149302332.

Further reading

• Gutcheon, Beth Richardson (1996). The New Girls. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 9780060977023. OCLC 1150870181 – via Internet Archive.