The Virgin Cure
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
'I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.' So begins THE VIRGIN CURE, a novel set in the tenements of lower Manhattan in 1871. As a young child, Moth's father smiled, tipped his hat and walked away from her for ever. The summer she turned twelve, her mother sold her as a servant to a wealthy woman, with no intention of ever seeing her again.
These betrayals lead Moth to the wild, murky world of the Bowery, filled with house-thieves, pickpockets, beggars, sideshow freaks and prostitutes, where eventually she meets Miss Everett, the owner of a brothel simply known as 'The Infant School'. Miss Everett caters to gentlemen who pay dearly for companions, and the most desirable of them all are young virgins like Moth.
Through the friendship of Dr Sadie, a female physician, Moth learns to question and observe the world around her, where her new friends are falling prey to the myth of the 'virgin cure' - that deflowering a maid can heal the incurable and tainted. She knows the law will not protect her, that polite society ignores her, and still she dreams of answering to no one but herself. There's a high price for such independence, though, and no one knows that better than a girl from Chrystie Street...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McKay's harsh yet hopeful second novel (after The Birth House) explores how women's lives were shaped by their socioeconomic status in the bleak tenements of 1870s lower Manhattan. Moth is 12 years old and living with her mother, a "slum-house mystic" who loots fire-gutted properties. Struggling to make ends meet, Moth's mother sells her daughter to Mrs. Wentworth as a maid, a situation in which Moth is regularly abused by her perverse guardian. Aided by a kind butler, Moth escapes to Miss Everett, who trains girls in social etiquette only to auction off their virginity. Miss Everett considers herself a cut above her competitors, as she does not sell her charges as "Virgin Cures," whose efficacy hinges on the superstition that a man can be healed of disease if he sleeps with a virgo intacta. Moth soon becomes friends with Dr. Sadie (based on the author's great-great grandmother), a female physician who entreats Moth to avoid life in a brothel, suggesting instead that she seek out adoption by a good family. Surrounded by women who fight to survive in vastly different ways, Moth must assess her desire to escape poverty in light of its daunting potential costs.
