Miss America goes on the lam in a terrific novel
"The Night She Won Miss America"
By Michael Callahan
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 312 pp, $23)s
By Michael Callahan
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 312 pp, $23)s
As a feminist to my marrow, I've always found beauty pageants nauseating, demeaning and the sort of anachronistic throwbacks to an era where little girls' career options were severely limited.
So this book didn't beckon.
Set during The Miss America Competition of 1950, this chronicles the story of a reluctant contestant, Miss Delaware, Betty Jane Welch. A harp player and college student, her mother persuades Betty to compete. Her mom very much wants to be in the Junior League, and Betty entering the state contest should boost her mom's social standing.
Betty, 19, never expected to win or make it through the interviews, bathing suit, evening gown and talent competitions of the national contest. The title gives it away, yet it reveals nothing other than she won.
Shortly after meeting Betty, readers realize why she took the crown. Beautiful, poised, smart and talented, Betty is wonderful and though a few other young women could easily have worn the tiara, Betty is the perfect choice.
The novel is bookended with a reporter trying to get a story. Michael Callahan, who was a journalist in Atlantic City, does a terrific job explaining the reporter's job - the one who frames the story and that of Eddie Tate, an important character. Tate was an excellent reporter, covering the beauty pageant until his adoration for Betty bested his ambition for work.
Callahan masterfully relies on facts of the pageant, builds nuanced, flawed characters, and makes us feel the power of love at first sight. We can understand how a man and a woman would surrender all they worked for, for the chance of love - if only they were abandoning their dreams for each other. It's not, however, that simple.
The Miss America contestants were assigned escorts for the week in Atlantic City. Betty's escort was the dazzlingly handsome John Griffin McAllister, a strawberry blond like Betty, and with "haunting, pale gray eyes the color of ice water."
Callahan also does a fine job imagining what it's like to wear the beauty queen's sash. Wonderful moments of getting inside Betty's head, as she's asked inane questions by reporters and judges have her thinking: "what is most surprising, to her at least, is how quickly she is able to muster the proper answers, bland and predictable platitudes."
Already mature and with the self-containment required of royalty, Betty keeps a cool head in very hot situations. Griff is extremely troubled and were he not from a wealthy family, he would be doing life behind bars.
Much as readers will come to like and respect Betty, it's Ciji, Miss Rhode Island and Betty's roommate for the week, whom I love. Savvy, directed and the sort of friend you call in the middle of the night weeping about an insane boyfriend, a rape and a murder (not all the same man) and she will come to the rescue. And let's not forget Tate, a solid reporter, whose sleuthing skills are better than many detectives.
"He knew from experience that there was no one more likely to help you out in a jam than a buddy you'd lived with in college."
Even minor characters get a full drawing such as the head of housekeeping in the hotel where Ciji works in reception. "Ciji has often wondered what it must be like to go through life possessing no talent for expression other than the scowl."
In a very short period of time Betty's life turns around completely, and she's painfully aware of it.
"She thinks of the artless, trusting girl sitting in her mother's kitchen, how gullible she'd been, packing up her crepe and taffeta and dismissing everything at every turn as yet another silly adventure, as if life were a game played in the penny arcade. She remembers hearing stores during the war, stories she wasn't quite old enough to comprehend, about women in Europe, the things they'd done, the tactics they'd resorted to in order to survive."
Callahan transports us back to post-war America, nailing the politics, fashion, cars and social mores. As real as this story of Betty's brief and scandalous reign is, it's the best kind of fiction; so believable that I was wondering about its authenticity until the author's note.
My only regret with this novel is that I didn't crack it open earlier.
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2017/05/dirty_dancing_remake_cole_prattes_abigail_breslin.html
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