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Viña Delmar
Viña Delmar's first novel, Bad Girl, zoomed onto the bestseller lists in 1928. It was inordinately controversial, dealing not only with promiscuity, as the title might lead one to imagine, but with childbirth as well. "A novel is not the place for obstetrics," one critic grumbled, saying, too, that "Miss Delmar must learn to leave something to the reader's imagination."
Other reviewers (the book had nearly twenty printings and was made into a Fox Movietone film) gave the novel high praise. Most of the plaudits mentioned the book's accuracy and its author's eye for detail; a few also hinted at its great charm.
Nation was one of these. "Bad Girl seems as fresh as a dill pickle on a hot summer day," its reviewer wrote. And at Bookman, the novel was touted as "one of the miracles of American life."
Bad Girl was, in addition, seen as a sort of time capsule, The New York Times noted that the story "captures a mood in the life of a section of the metropolis that will be invaluable 100 years hence for those seeking bygone atmosphere." Indeed, sixty years later, this is how one might best approach Delmar's first booklength work.
Bad Girl begins with the heroine, Dot, on an excursion boat on the Hudson River. Here she meets Eddie, the man she will eventually marry. She is a wisecracking typist who uses "ain't," "he don't," and such. Eddie is a radio repairman. The use of central characters from the working class almost guaranteed a wide reading audience.
Although writing in this milieu was refreshing, it was by no means restricting, in that Delmar was able to provide her more educated readers with a few tongue-in-cheek asides. We get, for instance, a girlfriend bragging to Dot about an imaginary beau who gives her expensive presents:
"Yes, George Bernard Shaw," said Maude, "Isn't that distinguished?" For a second she hung in dizzy suspense. The name had a too-familiar ring. Suppose it was the name of a movie actor?
Or, after Dot has succumbed in Eddie's flat, this wonderful exchange:
"Don't you suppose," Dot asked, "that somewhere there are nice people who would think it was all right?"
"Maybe in France," Eddie replied, doubtfully. "Even the high-toned...