Madeleine and Jane
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Product Details
Publisher: One Turtle Press
Release Date: October 10, 2023
Formats: Paperback, Ebook
ISBN: PB: 979-8-9876330-0-7; EB: 979-8-9876330-1-4
Trim: 5.5 x 8.5
Page Count: 322
Lost and Found in the Sixties
Emily Fox Gordon
Madeleine and Jane, both in their early twenties, arrive separately in Manhattan in January 1968. Jane is an aspiring writer seeking adventure, Madeleine, a fragile young woman fleeing an erotic nightmare. They meet by chance and throw in as roommates, first in an East Village tenement and later, through a stroke of dubious luck, in the luxurious uptown apartment of a mysteriously absent woman. Together and apart, Madeleine and Jane encounter the terrors and excitements—muggings, drugs, sexual freedom and experimentation—that burgeoned in the New York of that era. As the two develop a wary friendship, a self-appointed therapist—one of those Nietzschean characters who sprang up like mushrooms in the soil of the sixties—becomes entangled in their lives and, ultimately, divides them.
In 1968, two revolutions were in progress, one political and the other sexual. Neither Madeleine nor Jane has much interest in the protests on the Columbia University campus, but both are caught up in the maelstrom of erotic energy swirling through the country and the world in those heady days. Jane survives a rough initiation into the realities of sex, but in the course of this adventure she makes a moral error that she will regret for the rest of her life.
Sometimes it seems that the sixties never ended, but life was different then—raw, dismaying, exhilarating. Madeleine and Jane brings it back.
About the Author
Emily Fox Gordon has published two memoirs, a collection of personal essays, and a novel. She has received two Pushcart Prizes, a Guggenheim fellowship, and a 2019 Sidney Award. She is a member of the MFA faculty at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina and lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, philosopher George Sher.
Visit the author’s website at emilyfoxgordon.com
Reviews
“A wry and often hilarious dive into New York in the sixties. The historical details are accurate, spot on, conjuring both nostalgia and groans of recognition. Gordon’s insights into her characters make this a special joy to read.” —Phillip Lopate, editor of The Art of the Personal Essay
“Set in a pre-woke era, when feelings and perceptions weren’t yet disguised under ‘correct’ jargon, and filled with light moments as well as tragic ones, this is a nostalgia-inducing novel to savor and reflect upon.” —Daphne Merkin, author of 22 Minutes of Unconditional Love
“With incongruously chaste depictions of debauchery and a pitch-perfect ending that makes poetic justice achingly spare, Madeleine and Jane is a darkly funny comedy of manners that packs a wallop.” —Debra Monroe, author of It Takes a Worried Woman
“A scrupulous eye for detail and fine-tuned, unsentimental prose leavened with sly humor and slam-dunk metaphors . . . Gordon delivers a brilliant, engaging story, and doesn’t miss a beat.” —Ann McCutchan, author of The Life She Wished to Live: A Biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
“The book will speak to readers of any generation who have rolled the dice and moved to New York—or wish they had . . . A sprawling but intimate novel of two women whose lives converged in the city.” —Kirkus Reviews