Maiden

New Edition

By: Janys Nighthawk, Janice Vincent

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

Bridget doesn't have dreams. Growing up across the tracks in the 50s and 60s, her life's a little tough having to take care of family and raise siblings. But it isn't all bad. She's adored by a throng at school, not for anything great, just for her flower child ways, occult knowledge, and listening. She can do telekinesis and tell when the phone’s going to ring, but her real gift is listening to boys concerned about going to Vietnam. Things explode when she loses her virginity at fifteen to the lead singer of a garage band. She even begins to dream of a crossroads ranch house to assist hippie travelers--and then later, of a college degree. Yet, Bridget knows she’s been skating by on her good looks and friendly advice, and she's not willing to run away from home to live out her dreams. She isn’t all that surprised when a false rumor makes it all come crashing down. She barely has time to recover from the fallout when a new friend introduces her to John Burton. Just when she thinks she might be the first in her family to go to college, Bridget finds out she’s pregnant . . . for real. This is a fictionalized autobiography. In the new edition, long scenes have been pared. Review of 1st Edition by "ren" on Amazon.com "An unusual novel of the coming of age of Bridget Collins who is introduced to deviant sex early by a grandmother who's perversion has tainted Bridget's mother and thrown a shroud of secret fear over Bridget's family. The façade of a normal Utah, Mormon family in a average middle class neighborhood in the 50's and 60's prevails -- except that at grannies house under her laundry room dark unspeakable deeds are being enacted by granny and her cohorts. Bridget being a victim of these deeds - early on gains insight into reading the minds and desires of those around her as she survives the denial and betrayal of her parents who value appearances above reason and blunder through their lives making petty rules about what Bridget can wear, who she can play with, and other meaningless tokens of supposed parental protection, while ignoring Bridget's pleas not to be sent over to granny's. Tension deepens as we experience her life as it unfolds from innocence (in the voice of a small child) to one of wisdom well beyond her years as she struggles to analyze meaning and find acceptance from acquaintances, and relationships that would ordinarily be forgotten and left in the dust of childhood had not the underlying stress of her life required her diligent and constant observation. It is this unusually thorough observation of a child/teen/maiden that makes this novel so distinctive and enthralling. Bridget's voice of moment to moment life as it unfolds keeps us from gratuitous repulsion or harsh judgment as we see how her family, and those she meets are trapped by their own brand of fear and pain as the story moves forward dissolving and re-organizing into new intuitive revelations about the human experience."