When we first meet Moth (named thus because of a whispered word that her long-gone father supposedly heard from a pear tree), her destitute and fortune-telling mother has arranged for her to be sold as a maid to the wealthy Mrs. She has awoken in me an interest to read and learn more about this time. Although Ami McKay’s main character of Moth, just 12 years old, is fictional, she represents a part of our history that should not and cannot be forgotten. 318)Ī lot of people don’t, which makes this historical novel such an important one. In fact, the more money a man had, the easier it would have been for him to procure a young girl for this unthinkable act.” (pg. The myth of “the virgin cure” – the belief that a man with syphilis could “cleanse his blood” by deflowering a virgin – was without social borders and was acted out in every socioeconomic class in some form or another.
At this time in New York, syphilis was an overwhelming, widespread puzzle of a disease with no remedy….An even greater tragedy than the human wreckage resulting from this disease was a deadly myth that preyed upon young girls. “Sold into prostitution at a young age, many girls from poor families were brokered by madams (or even their own parents) as “fresh maids.” Men paid the highest price for girls who had been “certified” as virgins.
The Virgin Cure takes its title from a myth – and a very real fate that befell many young girls of this time.
There she writes that “in 1870, over thirty thousand children lived on the streets of New York City and many more wandered in and out of the cellars and tenements as their families struggled to scrape together enough income to put food on the table.” (pg. That’s because Ami McKay’s concluding commentary is just as important – and just as haunting – as her sophomore novel itself. If you decide to read The Virgin Cure (and this review is going to try its damnedest to convince you that you absolutely must ), make sure you don’t skip the Author’s Note at the end.
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