In the 1960s something happened in America that was called the Sexual Revolution. Alongside that, and sometimes overlapping with it, something else called Women’s Liberation gained momentum too. It was a time of social upheaval and times of such rapid social change bring risks because society runs wild into the wilderness without a map, without any plans, and without any guidelines to help ensure a safe transition into a new cultural mode of living. Some young people might struggle under a double burden as they try to find their place in a rapidly changing culture while also trying to find their place in the world, setting the stage for the role they will play for the rest of their lives. In Judith Rossner’s novel Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Theresa is a young woman, caught in the turbulence of this transitional time in American society.
The novel starts off with Gary Cooper White confessing to the murder of Theresa in a New York City police station. Cooper is a drifter from Florida, struggling with his own sexuality as he is in a relationship with another man, although he picks Theresa up in a bar for some fast and easy sex. The climax of the story opens the novel. What does this tell the reader? The murder is not the main point of the story. By putting it at the beginning we are quickly informed that the build up to this climax is what is most important.
So then we need to learn who Theresa is. As a child, she is alienated from her family. She has polio which leads to scoliosis and eventually a long stay in the hospital as surgery is needed to straighten her spine. She grows up feeling like an outsider with a permanent scar on her back and a slight limp which some men think makes her look sexy. In late adolescence, Theresa begins to connect with her older sister Katherine and begins to follow in her footsteps which is not necessarily in Theresa’s best interest. Katherine is promiscuous, uses drugs, gets into wife swapping, and has at least two abortions after getting pregnant without knowing who the father is. These passages in between the murder and Theresa’s first heart to heart talk with Katherine are the weakest parts of the book. Rossner writes like she can’t wait to get on into the juicier parts of the story and the result is some vague and muddled writing that suffers from lack of detail.
But things pick up when Theresa heads off to college. The naive young student gets targeted by a sleazy professor named Martin Engle who hires her to do his work for him, namely grading papers so he doesn’t have to. She walks directly into his trap, yet she does so willingly. The bed in his office is one among many clues of what is to come and mixed in with those clues are a lot of hints of how it will end up. Theresa wants to be seduced by Engle, but she doesn’t want to get dumped by him when she graduates and he moves on to another freshman who takes her place in his bed. All the subtleties of this affair are handled well since so much is obvious without the author explicitly saying so. You know that Engle is a skilled and experienced seducer of young college students. You know how the affair will end before it even starts. You know how it will effect Theresa even though she is smart enough to know what she has gotten herself into. But what works most effectively is how the process of seduction works. Engle searches out and finds Theresa’s primary vulnerability. He convinces her to explain why she limps and takes so much aspirin so she responds by showing him the scar on her back while telling him about her scoliosis. He offers her sympathy and emotional support in a way that come off as completely sincere. You can guess the rest.
After graduation, Theresa finds work as a grade school teacher, showing her compassionate and responsible side. At night, she prowls the singles bars of New York, picking up strangers for one night stands. This double life she leads functions as both a literary structure and as a psychological conflict for her as the book progresses. She eventually gets caught between two men. One is a grossly stereotypical working class Italian named Tony (as if there are no other possible names for Italian men in New York). He is crude, rough, insensitive, and a little bit dumb. Of course, he is amazing in bed so Theresa can not resist him even though she finds his personality to be revolting. The other man she sleeps with is James, an Irish Catholic lawyer who once considered joining the priesthood. James is intelligent and sensitive, but also a bit conservative. He isn’t too conservative though as he sees merit in some of the social changes happening around him. He even has extra-marital sex with Theresa although she finds it dull. She respects him for his mind and enjoys his company, but when he proposes marriage to her, she can not accept. Tony is the body, James is the mind. This dichotomy is cliché enough to make you role your eyes, but at least that unimaginative formula is filled in well with quality content. Both Tony and James are nuanced characters and through them we learn about all the fears and insecurities that Theresa has as she frets about what to do about the two of them. These psychological depths of Theresa are handled well with delicacy and sympathy by the author who brings us into the most intimate parts of Theresa’s mind, showing us how and why she is so unhappy and confused. When Theresa is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, she starts looking for ways to improve her life. And then...we already know where it goes. The process of developing Theresa as a character and portraying her self-consciousness and inner conflicts is the most subtly written part of the novel and also the strongest part of Rossner’s prose. With a non-judgmental approach, Rossner draws her as both fragile and strong simultaneously in a way that makes up for some of the more pedestrian aspects of the story.
Some people might be tempted to say this is a morality tale or a work of propaganda showing us what happens to women who engage in non-traditional lifestyles. This reading couldn’t be farther from the truth. It is more of a zeitgeist novel, examining the immediate effects of the social upheavals of the 1960s. For one thing, it shows how traditional family life is not necessarily compatible with the changing times of America. Theresa’s family does not give her the sense of self-esteem she needs to navigate the adult world and so she indulges in the risky behavior of using men for random sexual thrills. Her traditional family does not prepare her for the responsibilities that are necessary for relationships. James, her suitor, is also aware of the shortcomings of the old ways of living. Rossner indicates why the social movements of her time are appealing. By doing so, she raises questions about women’s roles in the family, women’s choices about when or if to get married, and whether women should be allowed to choose when, or even if, to have children. At the center of all this is the question of women’s sexuality and what it means on an individual level. Women need to be allowed to enjoy sexuality as they see fit, but they also need to consider the consequences and responsibilities that go along with it. Also of importance is the support women can give to each other. Theresa’s friend, another teacher at her school, invites her to a women’s discussion group where she learns that other women are struggling with the same problems she is. From them she learns that other women struggle with the issue of accepting their bodies, a central theme in this novel because of the scar on Theresa’s back and the way men notice her limp. This struggle to feel comfortable with her body is one of the roots of her feelings of anomie. Rossner is not writing to morally condemn Theresa; she is writing to provide a snapshot of her time in order to say that there are good and bad aspects of the social changes taking place. She is saying “Let’s stop for a minute, evaluate the situation, and decide what the best road to follow is from here on.” She isn’t necessarily saying that free love or extra-marital sex is wrong, but she is saying that we need to proceed with caution because this is new territory that contains significant risks.
The meaning of Looking for Mr. Goodbar is unique. It forges a middle path between hipster chic and stodgy, narrow-minded conservatism. Its evaluation of the Sexual Revolution and Women’s Liberation leaves the question of where to go from here unanswered, but also indicates the possibilities of good or bad paths to be followed. It was obviously intended for a commercial audience although it is more articulate and far better than 99 percent of the junk found on the best seller lists of the past 100 years. As American society continues to pass through sweeping social changes, you might be tempted to think the issues raised in this novel are outdated and specific only to that time, but the theme of an individual finding their place in a changing world, running into the wilderness without a map, is one that is timeless. The details may be outdated, but the dilemma is as old as the human race. It may make you wonder if the confusion we are suffering through as a society isn’t so unique after all.
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