JESSIE
by Barry G. Campbell
It's 1936. Allentown, PA. After being deserted by her mother, fourteen-year-old Jessie Mae Maundy lives with her abusive father.
Jessie dreams of running away to New York to become a Ziegfeld Follies Girl and lies about her age to get a job at a drugstore with her best friend Alice, so she can save enough money to escape her father.
She hears about a burlesque show at a nightclub in Easton, NJ and thinks this could be her ticket to eventually getting to New York. And as the abuse at home gets worse, she finally packs a small suitcase, and runs away.
Arriving at the nightclub, she becomes a stripper, and finds the mafia runs it.
Eventually she is sent by the mafia to Redding, PA to work in a brothel. After getting pregnant, she is beaten so badly she loses the baby.
Bleeding to death, she is rescued by Joe, another mafia capo, who takes her to a hospital to heal.
Pulled into the fringes of the mafia underworld, Jessie is a tragic, but eventually uplifting story of forbidden, but enduring love.
“After all I’ve done, do you think there will still be a place for me in heaven?”
Jessie is a novel that appeals to your emotions, and it pulls you into its web right from the beginning, with the intriguing question quoted above.
Will there be a place in heaven for women like Jessie? This is the ultimate theme of this utterly compelling book based on real events.
Jessie, an unmarried 80-year-old woman, lies dying. She is in the final throes of her fast-advancing cancer that threatens to cut her life short before she has told her tale. She has asked her nephew for help, and he is happy to take notes of her life story – which is nothing like he expected.
Be prepared for an emotional ride that has you question society's behavioural standards, and its hypocrisy!
Jessie is a young teenage girl living with her divorced father. After her mother had carted her off to live with him (her older sister Gloria was sent to another relative, living a comfortable middle-class life), Jessie's days are filled spending afternoons with her best friend, Alice, and trying to avoid thinking about her dad.
But when he returns from his work at a local mill, reality hits with brute force. Not only does he keep a tight control of how she has to keep the house – alongside school and homework – but he is also a bully who is prone to beat her when she gets something wrong. So Jessie makes sure the house is tidy, his dinner is ready, and his beer is chilled on his return from work. But it is the nights she fears the most – when he sneaks into her room!
This is where the book takes a swift turn towards the darkness Jessie is desperate to escape. But at her age, there is nowhere for her to go. Her mother insists she stays with her father, and she wants to finish school, to get away one day. Dreaming of becoming a famous dancer with the Ziegfeld Follies in New York keeps her spirits up when reality hits her too hard. A pipe dream, or something she can aspire to?
When Alice gets a job at a local parlour, selling sodas and ice-creams, Jessie joins her, pretending to be older. It works, and as it's during the day, her father doesn't find out. The money she keeps hidden from him, and her dream starts to take shape.
But one day, a serious accident injures him so much that he can no longer work. Losing an arm, and with a broken leg, he depends on Jessie to look after him, but he doesn't stop hitting her, or returning to abuse her. His insistence that she drops out of school to care for him is the last straw, and when he loses it again, she knows what she must do.
Desperate to flee this deadly trap, she packs her small suitcase, takes her savings, and leaves for the next town, hoping to find a job as a dancer in a burlesque bar.
But the bar turns out not to be the glamorous place she's expected, yet her lack of work experience leave her little choice. So aged 14 – pretending to be 18 – Jessie becomes an erotic dancer. Initially, she enjoys the attention, and the tips from the men in the audience. A quick learner, she soon becomes a major attraction in the bar.
When she meets Joe, in his late 20s and married, she falls for him, but in time, she learns that the bar is owned by the mafia, and Joe is in the thick of it.
Then, events take a dramatic, deadly turn, and her dream of a future in New York begins to crack, and soon she falls into a dark routine no teenage girl should ever find herself in (but one which many still face today).
Will there be a way out for this young girl, to be safe from brutal men and their power games? And what does Jessie really want from life?
Jessie is not an easy read by any means, but the author manages to convey her story in a manner that tugs at your emotions. It is beautifully written, despite the dark content, and in a way that the reader has no choice but to sympathise with Jessie. We desperately want her to have a bright future, like any teenager should have, without the threat of violence or abuse. As she keeps her dream of joining the Ziegfeld Follies alive, through her darkest hours, we keep everything crossed for her.
And whilst the novel deals with such dark topics such as parental abuse, prostitution, and violence against women, those scenes are never gratuitous. The author has a way of describing traumatic events with a strong dose of reality, but also empathy for the victims. Events are detailed at times, but only in the sense of realistic story-telling. This makes for a harrowing but still moving account.
Jessie is often quite naïve (normal for one so young), and prone to react emotionally. Her volatile reactions are perfectly understandable, in my view. Many of us would do the same. At the same time, we feel her helplessness against a father who should have protected her, and against criminals who take advantage of her vulnerability. And we want to see those men punished.
It is rare that a novel comes along that makes you think about the injustices in the world, courtesy of its thrilling plot based on true events. Jessie's story begins in the 1930s, yet nearly 100 years later, there are still millions of girls and women who find themselves in her situation – also through no fault of their own.
Equally, modern societal views on ’such’ women and girls remains mostly unchanged. But the shame should not be the women's – it should firmly lie with their abusers!
Yet despite her tempestuous life and everything she suffered, 80-year-old Jessie is a woman of positive attitude, with a wry sense of humour and a kind heart. A surprise at the end of the novel had her (and me) in tears. She is a truly likeable character, one I'd have loved to meet.
Lastly, we return to Jessie's important question:
Lastly, we return to Jessie's important question:
Will she go to heaven? Oh, I absolutely think so.
I would highly recommend Jessie to any readers who are interested in novels based on true stories showing the dark side of society, and the struggles many girls face(d). Jessie manages to be heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time. It is a gripping, evocative, and highly emotional read, and it makes you cry and rage. Jessie is easily one of the best novels I've read this year.
Ultimately, Jessie is a novel about a young girl's courage and resilience against the dark forces that are trying to destroy her life. And that courage should be remembered.
I Highly Recommend.
Review by Cathie Dunn
The Coffee Pot Book Club
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