Girls in Trucks
May 13, 2008
Girls in Trucks
Author: Katie Crouch
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Pub. Date: April 2008
ISBN-13: 9780316002110
Girls in Trucks is a story about a group of girls finding their way in life after growing up in Charleston as sheltered debutantes - raised under their mama's firm rules of etiquette and refinement.
Southerners tend to be more mindful of manners than many other areas of the country and these girls and their parents take that to extremes. The families are part of the Camellias - a debutante society so ingrained with rigid rules and formalities that the girls are put into weekly training at a young age in order to be "presented" to society as soon as they are of marriageable age.
All hopes are pinned on good marriages.
What follows in this book is the story of 4 or 5 girls who broke out of their tight knit society and attempted to make a new life away from the rigid rules they were bred into. Most move up North. These girls are not friends with one another, but since they were raised together and are "in society" they cling to one another thru the years, regardless of their likability.
This book does very well portray Southern Cotillion Society - showing all the "ugly" behind it, proving once again that money and privilege does not make a life any happier. It's definitely easier to survive and get by, but not necessarily more pleasant.
This is not a happy book. There's far too much low self esteem, alcoholism, drugs, hidden vices, rough and rude sexual encounters and people striving to be something other than what they are to call it an amusing or happy story.
Not one person in this story seems to be pleased with their life or in a good place. Possible happiness seems to be turned away from. Most end up moving back to their roots after years of disappointment and what they consider personal failures.
It's an interesting book, well written, with spot-on descriptions of certain areas of the South, but definitely not a "light" read.
