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The Girl From Storyville
ANGEL OR SHE-DEVIL?
Fanny Turner was a woman fated to destroy and be destroyed by her own angelic beauty and the demonic lust for vengeance that burned within her. The daughter of an ill-fated marriage between a proud, unbending man and a sensual woman who deserted them both, Fanny knew both the power and the humiliation of sex early. From that moment, her path was set...as she went from the corruptions of an exclusive girls' boarding school...to the legendary turn-of-the-century New Orleans red-light district where she became a girl in her own mother's "house"...to a tormenting marriage to a wealthy aristocratic planter who gave Fanny everything but what she most desperately needed.
Fanny Turner was a woman fated to destroy and be destroyed by her own angelic beauty and the demonic lust for vengeance that burned within her. The daughter of an ill-fated marriage between a proud, unbending man and a sensual woman who deserted them both, Fanny knew both the power and the humiliation of sex early. From that moment, her path was set...as she went from the corruptions of an exclusive girls' boarding school...to the legendary turn-of-the-century New Orleans red-light district where she became a girl in her own mother's "house"...to a tormenting marriage to a wealthy aristocratic planter who gave Fanny everything but what she most desperately needed.
556 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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155 people want to read
About the author
Frank Yerby
124 books115 followersBorn in Augusta, Georgia to Rufus Garvin Yerby, an African American, and Wilhelmina Smythe, who was caucasian. He graduated from Haines Normal Institute in Augusta and graduated from Paine College in 1937. Thereafter, Yerby enrolled in Fisk University where he received his Master's degree in 1938. In 1939, Yerby entered the University of Chicago to work toward his doctorate but later left the university. Yerby taught briefly at Florida A&M University and at Southern University in Baton Rouge.
Frank Yerby rose to fame as a writer of popular fiction tinged with a distinctive southern flavor. In 1946 he became the first African-American to publish a best-seller with The Foxes of Harrow. That same year he also became the first African-American to have a book purchased for screen adaptation by a Hollywood studio, when 20th Century Fox optioned Foxes. Ultimately the book became a 1947 Oscar-nominated film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara. Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the Antebellum South. In mid-century he embarked on a series of best-selling novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. Yerby took considerable pains in research, and often footnoted his historical novels. In all he wrote 33 novels.
Frank Yerby rose to fame as a writer of popular fiction tinged with a distinctive southern flavor. In 1946 he became the first African-American to publish a best-seller with The Foxes of Harrow. That same year he also became the first African-American to have a book purchased for screen adaptation by a Hollywood studio, when 20th Century Fox optioned Foxes. Ultimately the book became a 1947 Oscar-nominated film starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara. Yerby was originally noted for writing romance novels set in the Antebellum South. In mid-century he embarked on a series of best-selling novels ranging from the Athens of Pericles to Europe in the Dark Ages. Yerby took considerable pains in research, and often footnoted his historical novels. In all he wrote 33 novels.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 30, 2015
Without question, debate, or long-term consideration, this is one of the darkest books I've read. Ever. In any genre. No kidding. It's really, really dark, y'all.
Fanny Turner is the daughter of a straight-laced policeman & a wayward whore, the latter abandoning her family in favor of life in a brothel. Fanny's father resents her resemblence to her missing mother -- they share the same angelic, pale beauty -- and so he marries again, this time to a well-educated woman he jilted years before. But contrary to expectations, Martha is a noble mother-figure; there's no wicked stepmother in this novel. Instead there's a wicked girl who's determined to guide her life into ruin -- because that's what her mother did, therefore it's her duty to follow in those footsteps, whether willing or unwilling. The remainder of the book is spent detailing her obsession with claiming her destiny as a fallen woman who doesn't deserve the smallest kindness from anyone remotely decent & clean-living (though that doesn't stop her from willfully wrecking everyone's happiness in the process).
While Yerby poses interesting questions re: the Victorian terror of "fallen women" genetics (Fanny fully believes her mother's 'evil, rotten blood' is a curse), the reader's sympathy is much more subjective. Truly, Fanny has some bad luck, but rarely (if ever) have I encountered such an abusive heroine. The girl whines, bitches, moans, & constantly hates on herself for being the spawn of a whorish mother. She despises anyone who treats her with respect & gentleness. She's a loathesome character & a terrible example of the female sex. But that isn't what poisoned me against her. Yes, the continual self-hatred was annoying...but what I couldn't stand was Fanny mistreating those who suggested she didn't have to follow her mother's footsteps. Anyone who implied (whether by word or deed) that she had legit means to extricate herself from whoredom was met with disgust...and, eventually, pathological abuse. It seems that Fanny's goals in life were simple: 1) to become a sex-obsessed loser, because that's what she was determined to believe she should be, & 2) to spread the resulting misery upon everyone she knew.
That, my friends, is a heroine I will NOT support.
Unlucky? Sure. Bad choices? I'll buy it. Reluctant to love herself? Yeah, okay. But deliberate -- and repeated -- self-sabotage because she lacks the will to admit she could rise above her mother's 'evil blood'? NO. I've read some pretty grim books about historical hookers, but none of these women hold a candle to Fanny's whinging self-damnation. Her life didn't have to turn out the way it did. She made it happen, & then she punished other people for not treating her like the shit she proved herself to be. WTF IS THIS?? (Sure, you'll say...that was the tragedy of the novel. But was it really? What if she was born bad? It's a nature/nurture question, & a vivid one at that.)
Quite simply, I hated her. :D And that hatred, combined with one of the grimmest plots I've read in yoinks, had me rushing to push through the book ASAP. Concluding the story was a must -- and oh, what WTFery it was -- but the aura of GLOOM & DOOM became so oppressive that I couldn't face lingering any longer than necessary.
That said, the writing was good. The descriptions were vivid & the narrator's interjections posed interesting asides on sensational Victorian tropes (sex shown vs sex implied, The Fallen Woman Redeemed by Love, the often ridiculously 'good' hero that needs must endure to love a reformed prostitute, etc). Yerby's introduction also deserves a special mention, as it offers a mini-essay on what's awesome about old-school & what's (often) wrong with post-modern drivel. Furthermore, Yerby is unapologetic for his story's underpinnings -- a grotesque throwback to Victorian cautionary tales, sometimes serious & sometimes tongue-in-cheek (at least where the narrator is concerned, since the characters don't so much as crack a smile after the first fifteen pages). All these things rank highly on Sarah's Respect-o-Meter. So, yes -- the writing & behind-the-curtain intellectual qualities are enough to draw me back for another Yerby at some point.
...But I take comfort in the fact that he can't possibly have written anything more gloomy & dark than this weighty little tome. *shudder* The Self-Loathing Destructive Heroine bar has been set, my friends, & its name is Fanny Turner.
Fanny Turner is the daughter of a straight-laced policeman & a wayward whore, the latter abandoning her family in favor of life in a brothel. Fanny's father resents her resemblence to her missing mother -- they share the same angelic, pale beauty -- and so he marries again, this time to a well-educated woman he jilted years before. But contrary to expectations, Martha is a noble mother-figure; there's no wicked stepmother in this novel. Instead there's a wicked girl who's determined to guide her life into ruin -- because that's what her mother did, therefore it's her duty to follow in those footsteps, whether willing or unwilling. The remainder of the book is spent detailing her obsession with claiming her destiny as a fallen woman who doesn't deserve the smallest kindness from anyone remotely decent & clean-living (though that doesn't stop her from willfully wrecking everyone's happiness in the process).
While Yerby poses interesting questions re: the Victorian terror of "fallen women" genetics (Fanny fully believes her mother's 'evil, rotten blood' is a curse), the reader's sympathy is much more subjective. Truly, Fanny has some bad luck, but rarely (if ever) have I encountered such an abusive heroine. The girl whines, bitches, moans, & constantly hates on herself for being the spawn of a whorish mother. She despises anyone who treats her with respect & gentleness. She's a loathesome character & a terrible example of the female sex. But that isn't what poisoned me against her. Yes, the continual self-hatred was annoying...but what I couldn't stand was Fanny mistreating those who suggested she didn't have to follow her mother's footsteps. Anyone who implied (whether by word or deed) that she had legit means to extricate herself from whoredom was met with disgust...and, eventually, pathological abuse. It seems that Fanny's goals in life were simple: 1) to become a sex-obsessed loser, because that's what she was determined to believe she should be, & 2) to spread the resulting misery upon everyone she knew.
That, my friends, is a heroine I will NOT support.
Unlucky? Sure. Bad choices? I'll buy it. Reluctant to love herself? Yeah, okay. But deliberate -- and repeated -- self-sabotage because she lacks the will to admit she could rise above her mother's 'evil blood'? NO. I've read some pretty grim books about historical hookers, but none of these women hold a candle to Fanny's whinging self-damnation. Her life didn't have to turn out the way it did. She made it happen, & then she punished other people for not treating her like the shit she proved herself to be. WTF IS THIS?? (Sure, you'll say...that was the tragedy of the novel. But was it really? What if she was born bad? It's a nature/nurture question, & a vivid one at that.)
Quite simply, I hated her. :D And that hatred, combined with one of the grimmest plots I've read in yoinks, had me rushing to push through the book ASAP. Concluding the story was a must -- and oh, what WTFery it was -- but the aura of GLOOM & DOOM became so oppressive that I couldn't face lingering any longer than necessary.
That said, the writing was good. The descriptions were vivid & the narrator's interjections posed interesting asides on sensational Victorian tropes (sex shown vs sex implied, The Fallen Woman Redeemed by Love, the often ridiculously 'good' hero that needs must endure to love a reformed prostitute, etc). Yerby's introduction also deserves a special mention, as it offers a mini-essay on what's awesome about old-school & what's (often) wrong with post-modern drivel. Furthermore, Yerby is unapologetic for his story's underpinnings -- a grotesque throwback to Victorian cautionary tales, sometimes serious & sometimes tongue-in-cheek (at least where the narrator is concerned, since the characters don't so much as crack a smile after the first fifteen pages). All these things rank highly on Sarah's Respect-o-Meter. So, yes -- the writing & behind-the-curtain intellectual qualities are enough to draw me back for another Yerby at some point.
...But I take comfort in the fact that he can't possibly have written anything more gloomy & dark than this weighty little tome. *shudder* The Self-Loathing Destructive Heroine bar has been set, my friends, & its name is Fanny Turner.
April 3, 2013
Again, a tragedy that only an adolescent girl can appreciate. I loved this book in my teens. Think I read it 5 or 6 times. Felt so good to be so miserable, ah youth.
November 28, 2014
Incredible! What a writer. This is quite a dark story, but extremely well-written and researched. I'm shocked that this author is not better known.
November 28, 2014
My very first guilty pleasure.
I sneaked this paperback off of my mother's bookshelves as a preteen (I know!) and was a goner!
Of course I was mesmerized by the sexual passages, but in contrast to the contemporary novels my girlfriends and I would paperclip at the "dirty" parts, this book held my interest in a deeper way.
I read this book again every 3-4 years. I still love it and its overall theme of societal expectation versus human desire.
Fanny was desperate to be the perfect Victorian girl and was betrayed not only by the legacy of her promiscuous (and whorehouse madame mother) but by her own teenaged romantic heart and desire to be loved. Even by a shit like Rodney Schneider. Her desperation resulted in her downfall at the hands of said shit and his band of junior rapists.
Without giving away any more, Phillipe invests his life in Fanny's, making gallant, foolish choices that eventually destroy him. His intentions are noble, but his efforts are futile. Fanny is already a ruined woman, in terms of Victorian society and her own psyche. She is tortured and full of self-hatred which paves the path for her wretched life.
I immersed myself in this book and read it over and over.
When my mother found it , dogeared in my room, she expressed shock that I was reading such a "graphic" book. She never acknowledged I has procured it from her collection. :)
I adore this book and always will. Pulp at its finest!!!
I sneaked this paperback off of my mother's bookshelves as a preteen (I know!) and was a goner!
Of course I was mesmerized by the sexual passages, but in contrast to the contemporary novels my girlfriends and I would paperclip at the "dirty" parts, this book held my interest in a deeper way.
I read this book again every 3-4 years. I still love it and its overall theme of societal expectation versus human desire.
Fanny was desperate to be the perfect Victorian girl and was betrayed not only by the legacy of her promiscuous (and whorehouse madame mother) but by her own teenaged romantic heart and desire to be loved. Even by a shit like Rodney Schneider. Her desperation resulted in her downfall at the hands of said shit and his band of junior rapists.
Without giving away any more, Phillipe invests his life in Fanny's, making gallant, foolish choices that eventually destroy him. His intentions are noble, but his efforts are futile. Fanny is already a ruined woman, in terms of Victorian society and her own psyche. She is tortured and full of self-hatred which paves the path for her wretched life.
I immersed myself in this book and read it over and over.
When my mother found it , dogeared in my room, she expressed shock that I was reading such a "graphic" book. She never acknowledged I has procured it from her collection. :)
I adore this book and always will. Pulp at its finest!!!
October 9, 2022
Nothing Victorian about this novel, and that is why I love it.
February 25, 2017
Frank Garvin Yerby (September 5, 1916 – November 29, 1991) was an African-American historical novelist. He is best known as the first African-American writer to become a millionaire from his pen, and to have a book purchased by a Hollywood studio for a film adaptation.[wikipedia]
I read several of Yerby's novels when I was a teenager. He was a bestselling author back in the day. Now, nobody's heard of him. I remember liking this book, but that was 40 years ago, and I don't remember much about it.
I read several of Yerby's novels when I was a teenager. He was a bestselling author back in the day. Now, nobody's heard of him. I remember liking this book, but that was 40 years ago, and I don't remember much about it.
April 10, 2011
A sad story, the way of evil in this world. The life of a prostitute with explicit details.
If not for the Historical side I'd have put it down a long time ago due to very bad language.
Doesn't seem to be a Victorian Novel like stated but a good story in all.
If not for the Historical side I'd have put it down a long time ago due to very bad language.
Doesn't seem to be a Victorian Novel like stated but a good story in all.
November 28, 2018
It’s back to Yerby’s beloved New Orleans (he goes there a lot) this time, to put it simply, for a look at how a girl turns whore. I guess, on a “heavier” note, it’s also a study of evil. I confess I found to hard to understand how it’s a “Victorian” novel as the author explains in his introduction; I haven’t read very much (truthfully: “dam’ little”) in that field. The other Goodreaders, most of whom are women I note, cover that quite well below.
What the book also is, is a rollicking good tale and a fun read, with lots of historical color. Enjoy.
What the book also is, is a rollicking good tale and a fun read, with lots of historical color. Enjoy.
October 4, 2017
A good historical novel from Yerby.
January 10, 2019
Wretched
Read
January 26, 2021I read this book at 13,, It was in my Middle Schools Library... Probably not suitable for that age group and I wonder who picked it.. Hey I really enjoyed it.
April 23, 2024
So enjoyed this book .
October 11, 2024
One of the most beautiful funny heartbreaking books I've ever read
January 19, 2025
I absolutely loved this novel. The characters were so beautifully written and true to life. Heart wrenching story that was incredibly dark at times but so engrossing to read.
February 22, 2023
At first, I was a bit skeptical about enjoying this hardcover book, It seemed so dated and his writing style though exquisite is cumbersome. The novel is set at the Turn of the Century in Louisiana. I disliked the main character Fanny who is ignorant, self-centered, selfish, and unpredictable. Her behavior is attributed to the fact that because she looks like her mother who abandoned her, walked out on her husband leaving him to raise her. Fanny's only counsel is the housemaid Eliza who is referred to as "nigger'. Yerby being true to the times, uses the word "nigger" liberally always in a derogative manner. The author, who is mixed (Creole) experienced racism and bigotry and left the U.S. as a result.
While a young girl Fanny feels unloved. When her father remarries, she hates her step-mother Martha who tries to help her. Because Fanny was overweight and pimply, she is the subject of ridicule by her classmates and boys in the neighborhood. When she loses a lot of weight through sheer determination and becomes a beauty, blond hair, with "mesmerizing eyes," the boy who treated her the worst is attracted to her and even though she's only fifteen, she becomes his mistress.
Yerby's intricate plotting, his detailed descriptions, is magnificent though a bit excessive. Despite his portrayal of African Americans is stereotypical of novels of that era and before,- black, ugly, dumb, ignorant, I couldn't put the book down. I've never read a portrayal of a woman as cruel, cunning, manipulative, suicidal like Fanny, and a nymphomaniac who hates men. I look forward to reading more of his work.
While a young girl Fanny feels unloved. When her father remarries, she hates her step-mother Martha who tries to help her. Because Fanny was overweight and pimply, she is the subject of ridicule by her classmates and boys in the neighborhood. When she loses a lot of weight through sheer determination and becomes a beauty, blond hair, with "mesmerizing eyes," the boy who treated her the worst is attracted to her and even though she's only fifteen, she becomes his mistress.
Yerby's intricate plotting, his detailed descriptions, is magnificent though a bit excessive. Despite his portrayal of African Americans is stereotypical of novels of that era and before,- black, ugly, dumb, ignorant, I couldn't put the book down. I've never read a portrayal of a woman as cruel, cunning, manipulative, suicidal like Fanny, and a nymphomaniac who hates men. I look forward to reading more of his work.
April 11, 2015
I tried to like Fanny Turner. When I couldn't, I tried to feel sorry for her. Finally she forced me to hate her, but as I continued reading I became less affected, though I had a strong desire to be done with her. She's so incredibly dark and destructive, and it tore at me to witness she had such awful effects on everyone she knew. It seemed that the only person not ill-affected by her was her mother. The two people with whom Fanny could reasonably be angry were her parents. We witnessed her punishment to her father, but why did nothing destructive happen to get mother in those 3 years at her whore house? Everyone who loved Fanny was destroyed to some extent. perhaps that's why her mother was left unaffected: she did not love or care about Fanny truly.
I came onto this book by accident. Being from New Orleans it interested me and was the first book I've read concerning Storyville. I was surprised to find out Yerby was not a native here because the book had historical accuracies of events and culture that were incredible. I appreciated his accents and fluent French as well. Dark and trying as it was, the book was well-written. I enjoyed his story, but I am glad to be done with it.
I came onto this book by accident. Being from New Orleans it interested me and was the first book I've read concerning Storyville. I was surprised to find out Yerby was not a native here because the book had historical accuracies of events and culture that were incredible. I appreciated his accents and fluent French as well. Dark and trying as it was, the book was well-written. I enjoyed his story, but I am glad to be done with it.
September 9, 2024
I love this author--normally. This book was awful on so many levels.
Firstly, this book was 556 pages too long.
Secondly, since I normally like Victorian "literature," I thought I was going to enjoy this one. However, I didn't.
And, thirdly, there were a lot of careless typos. I can deal with typos if the book makes me laugh. But I can't when I want to throw the book across the room.
In conclusion, definitely read the author but definitely don't read this book.
Firstly, this book was 556 pages too long.
Secondly, since I normally like Victorian "literature," I thought I was going to enjoy this one. However, I didn't.
And, thirdly, there were a lot of careless typos. I can deal with typos if the book makes me laugh. But I can't when I want to throw the book across the room.
In conclusion, definitely read the author but definitely don't read this book.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews