Marjorie Morningstar

by Herman Wouk

Overview

Now hailed as a "proto-feminist classic" (Vulture), Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk's powerful coming-of-age novel about an ambitious young woman pursuing her artistic dreams in New York City has been a perennial favorite since it was first a bestseller in the 1950s.
A starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves home to accept the job of her dreams--working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest--and the most destructive--love of her life.
Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine.
"I read it and I thought, 'Oh, God, this is me.'" --Scarlet Johansson

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316248549
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	594
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Herman Wouk (1915–2019) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author of fiction and nonfiction. His works include The Caine Mutiny, Marjorie Morningstar, The Hope, and The Glory. Several of his books have been adapted into films and miniseries. Wouk’s early career as a radio comedy writer included a stint on the Fred Allen Show. He later became a naval officer after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Wouk’s novels The Winds of War and War and Remembrance delve into Jewish peoples experiences during World War II. In 1999, he received the Jewish Book Council Lifetime Achievement Award.

Editorial Reviews

"To me, it's a unicorn of a book—a so-called women's novel, written by a man, that takes its heroine very seriously...A serious book that finds a big, sprawling story in what seems like a small, narrow life."—Laura Lippman, author of The Lady in the Lake

"A proto-feminist classic."—Boris Kachka, Vulture

"Herman Wouk's most solid achievement...a major novel."—Saturday Review

"Definitely in the tradition of the great novel — spacious, abundantly peopled, shrewd, observant, humane."—New York Herald Tribune

"Its locale is Central Park West, Hunger College, and West End Avenue; its characters almost all Jewish; its appeal universal."—Sidney Field, Sunday Mirror

"Very good reading indeed."—Maxwell Geismar, New York Times

From the Publisher