<p>Coming of Age in the 1950s They called us the “Silent Generation.” Our men followed the Greatest Generation into another bloody war after only five years of peace; the Korean War. Remember it? Nearly as many of us died there as in Vietnam, the Baby Boomers’ war. Our women bridged a culture our mothers had discovered—going to college, but returning home to hang a framed diploma in the family kitchen. We began life expecting to live the same lives until the world changed around us, and many of us chose to change with it. Virgin Hall is a book about four women coming of age in the 1950s. The book is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the reader not only to the characters, but to the times. Clothes, sorority rush, boys, and a great date were all priorities for “co-eds” of the day. Sheila, the heroine, a sheltered girl from Brooklyn, is lost at first in the flamboyant culture of the Southwest. As her three suitemates help her adjust, the women establish lifelong friendships. The second part of the novel reveals the very real life situation Sheila faces. She is an incest victim and experiences a pregnancy from a rape, even as the pace of campus life goes on around her. Shelia is helped through her trauma by the other women and by the young man she considers her true love. Part three takes place thirty years later, at an impromptu reunion of the four college suitemates. They have all undergone changes in the intervening years, and answers to many questions raised in the first two parts come to light as they catch up on one another’s lives. America and the three women changed profoundly in the intervening years—all of them know that for every gain they made, a price was paid. Life in Different Times At heart, Virgin Hall is a book about what the 1950s were like and all the rigid hypocrisy and misplaced priorities of the times. We were the last generation to reflect the mores, habits, attitudes, and cultural values that dominated American life over the previous century. Virgin Hall is also is the story of a kinder era, when the individual felt a duty to society at large, values that seemed to die off after the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s. The good went with the bad for those of us living through the profound social changes of the times. I was proud to be a part of the civil rights movement, proud to be active in politics trying to elect progressive leaders, and proud to follow John and Robert Kennedy into what we hoped would be a new era. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to and for many of us. We had grown up in the days of lynchings, gentlemen’s agreements limiting what Jews could do, and suspicion of Roman Catholics that bordered on hatred. The only choice a woman had with an unwanted pregnancy was a coat hanger or a backroom, illegal abortion. No one mourned the passing of these societal defects. Virgin Hall was inspired by my experiences and the women who lived on the third floor of the freshman dormitory Virginia Hall, at Southern Methodist University in the early 1950s. Naturally the boys called it Virgin Hall. It is important to say this is not a roman à clef. None of these things happened to any of us. I have borrowed certain characteristics and details of background to create a pastiche of characters for the book. Purists of the time will recognize that I have taken liberties with the details of sorority rush and that Virginia Hall did not have suites like the other dorms. Other than that, I have stayed close to the truth of the time.</p>

Virgin Hall

Literature & Fiction

Taliaferro, Janet

Genre Fiction

Janet Taliaferro

<p>A full-length collection of poetry from Wisconsin writer's group the PaperBirch Poets on the broad themes of life, history, and the natural world. The PaperBirch Poets are Nancy Austin, Jan Bosman, Andrée Graveley, Elaine Hohensee, Elaine Strite, Janet Taliaferro, Shannon Theilman, Mary Louise Peters, and Michelle Zanoni.</p>

Stitching Earth to Sky

Austin, Nancy

Bosman, Jan

Graveley, Andrée

Hohensee, Elaine

Strite, Elaine

Theilman, Shannon

Peters, Mary Louise

Zanoni, Michelle

Poetry

Water's Edge Press

A Sky for Arcadia

Set in the early Eighties, A Sky for Arcadia is the story of a woman named Mary Ann, who awakens from the nightmare of an attempted suicide to what she considers the nightmare of daily life. This book chronicles her struggle to live without alcohol and drugs while trying to save a business, her surviving child, and what remains of her soul. Poignant, insightful, and sometimes painfully honest, A Sky for Arcadia explores the fact of living in an imperfect world, where dreams may not come true and the ending is not always happily ever after. But we must deal with this reality and accepting this is the litmus test which separates those who - while stumbling on life's obstacles and falling down - choose to stand up again, and those who remain lying down and whimpering. So Mary Ann decides to re-examine herself, to struggle to be free of drugs and alcohol, and somehow act like a responsible parent. Always afraid of feeling too much or not enough, the day finally came when she was content with the happiness that warms her being as she looks at the starry night sky. This is her story - and knowing how she made her journey may change you forever.

Politics & Social Sciences

Women's Studies

Xlibris, Corp.

Set in the early eighties, this is the story of Mary Ann, who awakens from the nightmare of an attempted suicide to what she considers the nightmare of daily life. The book chronicles her struggle to live without alcohol and drugs while trying to save a business, her surviving child, and her soul.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Addiction & Recovery

AuthorHouse

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Xlibris

A Reasonable Lady

Decadent Publishing LLC

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Taliaferro, Janet. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Taliaferro, Janet