The Affairs of Gidget

1963, possibly first edition, from Bantam
Frederick Kohner
The Affairs of Gidget
Original price unknown, purchase price $1.35
Very worn paperback
C-

I'd already seen the movies, TV-movies, and TV series by the time I found this in a used bookstore.  Who could resist such a racy title, particularly about the wholesome girl-midget?  Well, it turns out that Gidget is actually obsessed with sex, since "Undersized girls have oversized drives."  Jezebel has an interesting piece on the contrast between book-Gidget and screen-Gidget:  http://jezebel.com/5541992/the-sexual-history-of-gidget .  It seems that it's not just in this Gidget book (the only one I've read) that the plucky but not plucked protagonist almost-loses-her-virginity on a regular basis.  And usually it's not Moondoggie who might do the plucking.  And Kohner based Gidget on his surf-loving daughter, so that makes it even weirder.

While on the one hand, it's nice to have a 19-year-old heroine with an interest in sex, I am troubled by the "choices" over whom she might give her cherry to.  Like a Lessing heroine, she drifts into affairs (basically makeout sessions, although maybe not more than necking) with a married professor, a stupid jock, and a divorced dentist with a daughter.  Actually, with the last, they only kiss a couple times and mostly just sit around listening to his impressive hi-fi set.  It even plays tapes!  With the first two affairs, there's a lot of romance novel "my resistance was overpowered by his powerful smooches," made more disquieting by her emphasis on her petiteness being no match for the girth of the men, particularly the 250-pound jock.  In the case of the professor, he allegedly has an open marriage (well, he says they have an understanding, yet it's unclear if he's lying), but Gidget is hesitant because the wife is (gasp!) Asian, (shudder!) nice, and (good God no!) seven-months pregnant.  The dentist seems like an improvement, but Gidget realizes that he'll only ever truly love his daughter. 

As for Gidget's own father, he's a European "libertine" who lived in sin with Gidget's mom a few years before they were married.  So he's more understanding than most dads would be about his daughter's experimentation, but advises her to be more honest and careful.  This would be cool, if the author-father hadn't produced such a leering book.  (Gidget at one point describes herself as "round, peachy and fully-packed.")

My main problem with the book though is that Gidget is the most unpleasant 19-year-old girl in my fiction collection since From 18 to 20.  I said of that 1888 book, "To the extent that Beatrice has any personality, it's because she's unpleasant....She makes lots of snarky comments about women and girls, including how boring and hypocritical they are."  Gidget does have more personality than Beatrice, including loads of slang, but I think she's a lot more sneering.  It begins in the first chapter, with Gidget deliberately antagonizing her slightly unpleasant new roommate to the point of letting a bird shit in the roomie's bed.  And later there are some cruel insults of the menopausal housemother.  And I must say I'm baffled by the character assassination Kohner does on Mrs. Riley in less than 100 pages.  She starts out as warm and friendly, but by the end she's a Mrs. Grundy, simply because the plot calls for it.

Similarly, the prof has a beard and is Existentialist, but he hates beatniks.  Wha???  The book is certainly topical, from JFK to the Kingston Trio, so that adds some interest.  But I wouldn't recommend it to any but the curious.