Just Because: 'Marjorie Morningstar'

This novel, by Herman Wouk (born 1915), is one of the more charming books I've ever read. Which is curious, because here we have a male author whose protagonist is female. That just goes to show what a good writer Wouk is, particularly when his other novels ~ The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War ~ are so very full of the prototypical male essence. Still, it was the title of the book more than the identity of the author that drew me to it. Here's how Marjorie Morningstar begins:

Chapter 1. MARJORIE

Customs of courtship vary greatly in different times and places, but the way the thing happens to be done here and now always seems the only natural way to do it.
   Marjorie's mother looked in on her sleeping daughter at half past ten of a Sunday morning with feelings of puzzlement and dread. She disapproved of everything she saw. She disapproved of the expensive black silk evening dress crumpled on a chair, the pink frothy underwear thrown on top of the dress, the stockings like dead snakes on the floor, the brown wilting gardenias on the desk. Above all she disapproved of the beautiful seventeen-year-old girl lying happily asleep on a costly oversize bed in a square of golden sunlight, her hair a disordered brown mass of curls, her red mouth streaked with cracking purplish paint, her breathing peaceful and regular through her fine little nose. Marjorie was recovering from a college dance. She looked sweetly
innocent asleep; but her mother feared that this picture was deceptive, remembering drunken male laughter in the foyer at 3 a.m., and subdued girlish giggles, and tiptoeing noises past her bedroom. Marjorie's mother did not get much sleep when her daughter went to a college dance. But she had no thought of trying to stop her; it was the way boys met girls nowadays. College dances had formed no part of the courtship manners of her own girlhood, but she tried to move with the times. She sighed, took the dying flowers to try to preserve them in the refrigerator, and went out, softly closing the door.
   The slight noise woke Marjorie. She opened large blue-gray eyes, rolled her head to glance at the window, then sat up eagerly. The day was brilliantly clear and fine. She jumped from the bed in her white nightgown, and ran to the window and looked out.
   ...