Now, Voyager by Olive Higgins Prouty

Now, Voyager by Olive Higgins Prouty

Don't let's ask for the moon We have the stars The film that concludes with Bette Davis's famous word reaffirmed Davis's own stardom and changed the way Americans smoked cigarettes. But few contemporary fans of this story of a woman's self-realization know its source. Olive Higgins Prouty's 1941 novel Now, Voyager provides an even richer, deeper portrait of the inner life of its protagonist and the society she inhabits. Viewed from a distance of more than 60 years, it also offers fresh and quietly radical takes on psychiatric treatment, traditional family life, female desire, and women's agency.

Boston blueblood Charlotte Vale has led an unhappy, sheltered life. Lonely, dowdy, repressed, and pushing 40, Charlotte finds salvation at a sanitarium, where she undergoes an emotional and physical transformation. After her extreme makeover, the new Charlotte tests her mettle by embarking on a cruise and finds herself in a torrid love affair with a married man which ends at the conclusion of the voyage. But only then can the real journey begin, as Charlotte is forced to navigate a new life for herself. While Now, Voyager is a tear-jerking romance, it is at the same time the empowering story of a woman who finds the strength to chart her own course in life; who discovers love, sex, and even motherhood outside of marriage; and who learns that men are, ultimately, dispensable in the quest for happiness and fulfillment.

OLIVE HIGGINS PROUTY (1882-1974) was born in 1882 into a wealthy Massachusetts family. Educated at Smith College, she wrote fiction aimed primarily at women readers that, unusually for her day, emphasized the importance of women s independence and included feminist themes. Of her ten novels, the best-known are Stella Dallas (1923), which became the basis for three films and a long-running radio serial, and Now, Voyager (1941), a best-seller translated into a film starring Bette Davis in 1942. Prouty s memoir Pencil Shavings (1961) reveals her struggle to balance her writing, which she worried was selfish, with the needs of her family and later her philanthropic work. After a breakdown in 1925, her psychiatrist encouraged her to take her writing seriously, and her ensuing recovery led to further novels. The proceeds of her work went to a range of charities, and she established a scholarship at Smith, one of whose recipients was Sylvia Plath, who later portrayed her patron and mentor unflatteringly in The Bell Jar. Prouty wrote her last novel, Fabia, in 1951 and up until her death in 1974 lived in Brookline, Massachusetts.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781558614765
ISBN 10	1558614761
Title	Now, Voyager
Author	Olive Higgins Prouty
Series	Femmes Fatales Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Feminist Press at The City University of New York
Year published	2004-11-18
Number of pages	258
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.