The Only Girl in the Car

November 11, 2002
Freelance journalist Dobie grew up in a small Connecticut town in the 1960s, the oldest girl in a Catholic family of eight. Her memoir opens when she's 14, sitting on her front lawn, all dolled up in her "candy-striped halter top, bell-bottom jeans, and platform shoes," waiting to get picked up by some guy—any guy—and lose her virginity. She doesn't know much about boys or men, but she's drawn to the bad ones, those who leer, eyeing her sexual possibilities. Before long, she's had sex with a few and acquired a steady boyfriend. While the sex isn't exactly arousing, she gets something she needs more: a crowd, a scene. Kathy has her Jimmy and a backseat full of Jimmy-wannabes, and they're cruising the neighborhood, drinking and smoking dope. Being "the only girl in the car" is a kick, until the night it turns into a gang rape and Kathy's whole world turns on her. She's ostracized so badly, she can't confide in her closest girlfriends, much less her family. Slowly she recovers by "remaking" herself as a loner, as a writer. Like many coming-of-age stories, Dobie's is painful, in large part because of the cultural cusp her generation of women had to navigate. Sexual liberation was celebrated—even the youth center director talked with the teens while she dallied in bed with her boyfriend—but girls with reputations were doomed. Although Dobie doesn't expose a new world, her text is engaging. (Mar. 4)Forecast: Dial plans reading group guides and ads in the
New York Times Book Review, which might attract female browsers.