Molly

by Nancy J. Jones and Ненси Джонс

Book Overview

"I have never had another friendship like that I had with Molly. One loves only once with such intensity and devotion." Inspired by the literary classic Lolita, this extraordinary debut novel is a richly imagined coming-of-age story about two girls in Illinois in the 1940s and their intense, erotically charged friendship, which endures even after one moves away and becomes entangled in a disturbing life with her new stepfather. Shy, intelligent, and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0609604627
• ISBN13: 9780609604625
• Release Date: March 2000
• Publisher: Crown
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Better Than Your Average Rip-Off

In the recent popularity of adapting Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita to screen and inevitably embarrassingly hopeless literature, Molly by Nancy J. Jones is a refreshing, daring, and intelligent novel. The Lolita Lover will obviously find the name changes a little disturbing at first (Humbert Humbert is now Richard Richard? What the...?), but it is surprisingly easy to see Molly as its own story, and, in return, as her own girl. Call her what you like--Molly, Dolly, Dolores, Lo, Lola, Lolita--but she will remain the same, and she cannot be defined. There are many Lolitas in the world, and I am not only referring to Dominique Swain and Sue Lyon; Dolly, Molly, even the girl next door, are ultimately nymphets. This novel made me realize this, and even though it is not a classic piece of literature (something many, I'm afraid, expect when Lolita is so much as compared to a writing), this novel is enjoyable, relatable, and let me make a confession, here--Molly made me cry. Lolita did not.Perhaps Molly makes Lolita common, but Lolita ultimately was common. I know, I know...art exists to find beauty in the most common of things, but reality has to kick in somewhere, right? Molly is Lolita with sense.

It was rape

Young girls want to be noticed. They want to be cute. They practice their flirting on older men, and it is incumbent on those men to accept it as merely practice. There is nothing a girl this age can do that justifies the man following through to sexual intimacy. Ever. That is clear in this re-viewing of Lolitta. What is also clear is that Jones understands the power of girlhood friendships. The book speaks to the former girl in all women. It is a compelling read

A Woman's First Love:The Strength of Childhood Friendship

When I read the foreword of Nancy J. Jones' novel "Molly" I knew I had discovered a wise and thoughtful author. Tears of recognition surfaced, as I read on, for I too had lost my first best friend at a similar age. Like Betsy,the novel's narrator, I spent years, believing I could have somehow saved my friend. This novel brings home to the reader many truths. One being that, the coming-of age process is a never ending struggle. The backdrop here is 1940's Illinois. The era is illuminanted deftly, through the music, fashion and social mores of the time. Ms. Jone's is self admittedly inspired by Nabokov's Lolita, in her first novel, but the passions displayed here are different from the Nabokov story. Here too, the taboo of adult/child sexuality is explored, but never exploited. But for me the real passion of this book is the exploration of female childhood friendship, a bond that is never broken in one's heart or mind, even if the two are separated by miles or death. Thank you Nancy Jones for your graceful prose and timeless, truthful story.