In Phoebe Gloeckner's graphic novel, Minnie, who was a green-eyed sophomore, was described
as “[...] (about 5'4”), with broad shoulders and broad lips and a
little waist” with growing breasts.
Minnie's
affair began with Monroe, her mother's 35-five-year-old
boyfriend, after Monroe rubbed Minnie's breast through her white and
blue striped flannel nightgown.
Monroe was described as “the
handsomest man in the world” with blond hair, blue eyes and “two
big strong muscular thighs” who was into “waspy-looking girls
with small tits” and was a fan of David Hamilton.
Minnie
“half-felt” that it was “rude and presumptuous” to think that
Monroe did it on purpose, but she backed away, because she didn't want
Monroe to know how small her breasts were. In addition, Minnie had a
“strangely calming feeling” that even if Monroe had intentionally
touched her “tits on purpose, that is was probably all right
because he's one of our best friends and he's a good guy and he knows
how it goes […]”
Two
nights later, Minnie's mother suggested that the nympholept and
nymphet go out. They went to a nightclub where, after a number of
drinks, Monroe kept feeling on Minnie's “tits” before Monroe
said, “Oh look you're giving me a hard-on […]” Subsequently, he
put Minnie's hands down his pants, which caused Minnie to shockingly
ask Monroe to “f_ck” her. Back in the car Monroe asked, “You
really do want me to f_ck you, don't you?”
On a
subsequent night, after Minnie's mother went to bed after viewing an
episode of Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, Monroe
slipped his hands between Minnie's legs. Minnie attempted to return
the favor and give Monroe a “blow-job and everything else”, but
they decided that it was too risky.
However, on the following
Tuesday, Minnie skipped school, Monroe drove her to his apartment in
the Russian Hill section of San Francisco where the nymphet gave her
mother's boyfriend her virginity. Minnie commemorated the event by
drawing an “X” in blood on Monroe's leg before Monroe said that
he couldn't believe that the 15-year-old wasn't a virgin. Minnie
shared that she hadn't even kissed a boy.
After
they had sex three more times, Monroe began to feel guilty about the
affair. Not only did Minnie feel “unguilty”, she became filled
with sexual energy. So much so, that she picked up a cute 16-year-old at the Golden Gate Park, began giving him a hand-job
in the aquarium, which ended in the bushes where she “sucked his
d_ck” and “rubbed it until he came all over his brand - new grass
- green shirt.”
That
was the beginning of Minnie's affair and her journey into raunchy
teen behavior. Without going into details about the affair and
Minnie's numerous sex scenes, I'm going to share some relevant excerpts from the book:
When
Minnie was in the 8th
grade at the Hamlin School for Girls, she was in love with Sarah
S----. Minnie shared “I remember trying to accidentally rub my
chest against hers – we wore white cotton midi blouses and neither
of us wore a bra.”
Pascal,
Minnie's Manhattan based stepfather, slept with Elizabeth, Minnie's 16-year-old friend – once when Elizabeth visited the east
coast and again when Pascal was in LA on business. However, Minnie's
mother wasn't surprised by the affair. She shared that her ex-husband
had an affair with his 16 or 17-year-old tutee while he
worked as a calculus professor in Philadelphia. The news of Pascal's
affairs with nymphets made Minnie question Pascal's sincerity about
his ongoing concern about her well-being. She suspected that he
secretly wanted to have an affair with her as well.
Kimmie
Minter, Minnie's best friend, tried masturbating but it hurt due to
her three-inch, “always painted”, nails.
Kimmie got crisp one-hundred
dollar bills from old man Mr. Coltos for engaging in acts like
letting him rub suntan lotion on her bikini clad body in the backyard
while his wheelchair bound wife watched Dialing for Dollars in
the living room.
Kimmie used to baby-sit “for a mixed couple with two
little boys.” After Marcus, the black father, came home from
bowling while his white wife was still out “with her girlfriends”,
Kimmie gave him blow jobs after she put Vaseline all over her mouth,
because Marcus' d_ck was so big that it felt like her mouth was going
to rip at the corners.
Minnie
and Kimmie met with Marcus for the purpose of engaging in a three-way in a cheap hotel, but the
nymphets changed their minds at the last minute.
Minnie
loved black guys because “they look so tough” and “smell so
gutsy”.
Minnie
wondered if she could ever “f_ck” her own father. She shared that
she used to have dreams about her grandfather. “We were both nude,
but I'd look down, and there was nothing there [...]”
At
least once, Minnie had sex with a teen (e.g., Ricky in Julius Kahn
Park.) and Monroe on the same day.
Minnie
went on a three-day trip to Paradise, California with Kimmie and her
mother to visit Kimmie's cousin Doreen and her husband. “Kimmie
was obsessed with the idea of fucking Doreen's husband,” which she
did – twice.
Minnie,
Kimmie and Monroe had a three-way in Monroe's apartment. Here's
Minnie's description of the event: “He f_cked both of us and he
came inside both of us […] We both sucked his c_ck and he ate us
out and we ate each other out […]”
Minnie
found boys her own age a “bore” and couldn't “get really
interested in them”.
Minnie
had a lipstick lesbian affair with Tabatha, a 16-year-old girl
with “a tough, feminine style.” Tabatha had a drug problem and
let two Black men, Arthur and his brother, have sex with a drugged
Minnie for a bag of Quaaludes. (Interestingly, the first edition of the book was even more graphic than the second. For example, in the first edition, there's a mind-bending picture of Tabatha having oral sex with a transvestite for drug money.)
Dr.
Wollenberg, Minnie's psychiatrist, prescribed her a Sunbeam Personal
Massager; however, Minnie found the orange vibrator to be “too
intense”.
------
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| Phoebe Gloeckner |
There
was an off-broadway stage adaption of the graphic novel and the movie received a 94% approval
rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 119 critics, with an average
rating of 8/10.
The film won an Jury
award at Sundance and was shown in Manhattan at the high-brow Lincoln
Center - where it was well-received.
Chris Dodge of the Utne Reader wrote:
“What's unusual and wonderful about Gloeckner's writing and art is its unflinching engagement with messy truths. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is shocking – and refreshingly – frank, strongly conveying what it's like to be a sexual girl [...]”
And Peggy Orenstein of the New York Times opined “Gloeckner is arguably the brightest light among a small cadre of semiautobiographical cartoonist.”
Hillary Chute, an associate professor in the department of English at the University of Chicago, wrote in the foreword:
“The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a totally uninhibited object. The protagonist Minnie, who lives in San Francisco and starts an affair with her mother's boyfriend when she is only fifteen, keeps an expressive diary that constitutes a large portion of the book [...] Diary stands as a brave, unabashed take on the complexity of life at this age.”
Lastly,
we'll end with a statement from the author, who is an associate
professor at the University of Michigan in the Stamps School of Art
and Design. She wrote in the preface of the revised edition:
“Minnie
is, first and foremost, a human being. That she is female and young
are secondary […] Although I am the source of Minnie, she cannot be
me – for the book to have real meaning, she must be all girls […]”
