“God, San Francisco was such a thief. A lady of the night, a
sorceress with her hands out...we had to pay to get in, pay to get out, pay for
every little thing. ... Pay for the Pacific Ocean and the beach. I am
expensive, the city always said, so pay me for my wonderful dark treats..."
Virgin Soul is set in the San Francisco of the 1960s, a
tumultuous time and place in American history and, unfortunately, not one I
know much about. I procrastinated on this review a bit because what can I possibly
say about its accuracy or its authenticity? I have a feeling I wasn’t as
emotionally connected to the actual people and events in the books as I should
have been, because I couldn’t tell what was real and what was fiction until I
looked it up later. But I can tell you the driving force of this novel for me
is the heroine’s frank, simple appeal. I was on her side as soon as she peed in
the elevator of a decadent clothing boutique. I can tell you the book made San Francisco
seem like a hungry living thing and the narrator’s voice gives the whole story an electric feeling like something big is always about to
happen. And I can say I found common ground with Geniece’s big ideas, the same
I think any progressive kid from college would even if they came from a different
background.
Although I don’t have much of a context to fit this story into, I appreciated the
issues Geniece faces and the chance to read about the beginning of the black
power movement.
