Modern Girls Then and Now: A Book Review

By: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

I know in my intellectual mind that learning history is important. It is crucial that we understand how things were then so that we can make better choices in the here and now. So why is it that I’ve always loathed reading about and learning about the history of our world?

Historical fiction has solved this problem! Reading stories of fictionalized people, or even real people in fictional situations, I have become quite the connoisseur of history. Sometimes a biography or a memoir will keep my attention, but historical fiction almost always captivates me.

Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown has opened my eyes to the plight of Jewish immigrants in the 1930’s. With war looming and the genocide of millions of Jews imminent, Brown delves into the lives of the Krasinsky family. At the cusp of Nazi Germany exploding into the murderous monster it became, we get to take a moment and witness how two women come to terms with a much more personal tragedy.

Dottie, just 19, and Rose, 42, are mother and daughter living on the lower east side of NYC. Dottie launches into her adult life excited by her bright future as a working professional woman and soon to be wife to a man she loves dearly. Rose too is on the brink of a new life. Having raised her children, she is looking forward to putting her energy back into her activist’s heart making a difference in her community by helping Jews emigrate from Europe before things deteriorate completely.

Both women must put their futures on hold when they become unexpectedly pregnant. Brown allows Dottie and Rose each to tell her own story with her own voice and thoughts. The reader gets to understand each woman’s internal struggle and how she resolves her own situation.

Rose and Dottie rely on each other, their paramours, and their friends to support and guide them through this journey of self-discovery and hard choices. Ultimately, each woman makes her own decision that allows her to move forward with the fewest personal regrets. These women are fiercely devoted to their religious traditions and their family. Somehow, they must learn to put themselves first while balancing their beliefs.

Brown touches on many themes: class struggle, women’s role in the workplace vs. the home, men’s expectations of women, religion, war, family, fashion, traditions. All of these themes remain relevant today. While immersing myself in Dotie and Rose's stories, I could not help but ponder how a woman in today's world would handle the same situation with similar circumstances. Presumably, the stigma of being pregnant late in life, or being young, pregnant, and single is much less. Nonetheless, other issues still cloud one’s ability to make an easy choice. Having the courage to decide what is best for you despite the pressures from the surrounding world will always be impossibly difficult.

As some of the laws regarding what a woman can choose for their bodies start to be retracted, as single mothers are given less and less aid, as men continue to be able to walk away from the children they father, as religious ideals continue to dictate decisions about birth control and marriage, one must ask, "Has all that much really changed?

I recommend this book for both the beautifully told story as much as for the thought-provoking issues that guide Dottie and Rose. I not only learned a bit more pre-war history and became familiar with the lifestyle and plight of the Jewish community of1930’s NYC, I discovered that, even with time and advances, somethings always remain the same. Modern girls then and now are saddled with hard choices.