Looking for Mr. Goodbar

I cannot believe that I missed reading this book. I have been a reader all of my life---but
had not read" Looking for Mr Goodbar". I am glad I missed it because I had the
pleasure of reading it now. It was so so good. Theresa will not soon be forgotten.
She was an unforgettable character. I feel that I crawled into her head. I did not
understand her any better than she understood herself. She was an enigma. After
a childhood of illness, she remained removed emotionally from her family. She did
not have the ability to grow close to anybody, which resulted in her life of one night stands.
There were explicit portrayals of several of these encounters. However, she was not dissatisfied
with her life until she met James on a blind date. She was fixed up with James by a fellow teacher.
James was decent, square, dull, and sexually inadequate, but he truly loved Theresa. She purposely
discouraged and disgusted him in every way----but he continued to loved her. Until finally Theresa
felt something for James. She was not sure what her feelings were, and neither was the reader.
After an argument with James, Theresa hits the bars again. We learn in chapter 1 that this last
pickup is a sicko who murders her. Poor poor Theresa

This is a classic piece of American literature for very good reasons. It's well written, yet accessible. It has complicated characters, yet the narrative isn't so dense as to leave the reader wondering.

It's a VERY dark piece of literature and not for the light-hearted. I love it and highly recommend it, but keep in mind that it's not a hopeful or positive book.

I watched the film, "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" about 7 years ago, (on Netflix, streaming) and was completely blown away by the ending. Wow. Never saw that coming. Diane Keaton was fabulous as Theresa Dunn, a lonely, troubled schoolteacher who has a penchant for one-night stands. I wasn't aware until recently that this movie was based on a novel, and also based on a real-life incident. I finally broke down and bought the paperback and of course, the book is even better than the film. The book really looks deeper into Theresa's traumatic childhood, (she suffered from polio) and her 4-year affair with her married, English professor. Judith Rossner really wrote a groundbreaking, brutally frank novel (this book was published in 1975) about a young women's descendant into a self-destructive double life. I don't think this book is a cautionary tale of women who are looking for a little fun on the side. I just think it's about how far a smart, educated, but deeply depressed woman who go to seek a little comfort/affection instead of a long-term, loving relationship. Theresa is not a perfect person. She's human and sometimes we do things that are unhealthy. This book is a real page-turner. I was completely fascinated by the way Theresa thinks and feels when it comes to love and marriage. Yes, she has severe emotional problems, but that doesn't mean she deserves what happens to her at the end of this book. Don't worry I won't spoil it for you. This novel is a real doozy. I'll just leave it at that. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

P.S. I really want the film version to be released on DVD. I hope it happens someday. I'll be first in line to purchase it. Fingers crossed.

I enjoyed reading-reading this book that I first read in the ‘80’s. This was before internet dating and it was not out of the ordinary to pick up strangers in a bar. But like today, you have to be careful of who you meet.

Theresa Dunn is a “good girl” from a stable Catholic family in the Bronx, raised to appreciate family values, and slightly under-confident after a childhood bout with polio. Now she’s bringing a drunken doctor back to her apartment, never mind that he’s heavy and smells of beer. But at 4am, she wants him out. She hates him, she was drunk when she let him take her home from the bar, and but then she says she “acquiesced to her own rape.” Now why is this attractive, financially independent young woman, seeking out bad men for sex, when she knows they’re going to use her and treat her like dirt?

Looking for Mister Goodbar is something of a Jekyll & Hyde story, particularly with regard to sex. During the day she’s Theresa, the popular schoolteacher, and by night she’s Terry, who hangs out at local bars when she can’t sleep. She finds a boyfriend, a clean-cut lawyer who acts gentlemanly, but she finds him boring. She sleeps with a married college professor, has a few more boyfriends who are either decent but dull, or exciting but seem to have “avoid me” written on their faces. This is clearly a very self-destructive woman.

Is this book meant to argue that the sexual revolution of the 1970’s was a fraud? Is it trying to say that the hippy era was just an opportunity for frivolous and dangerous behavior? It’s based on a true story Roseanne Quinn, a teacher for deaf kids, who was murdered in her West 72nd street apartment in 1973. She was a friendly and well-like person, but had a habit of bringing home rough guys for rough sex, and neighbors recalled screams from her apartment and bruises on her face. The fact that she was living in that area in the 1970’s would raise eyebrows; though she was in a doorman building, it was still not a safe place for a single woman to be living alone at the time. Keep in mind that this was the same era that brought us Taxi Driver, Death Wish, Marathon Man, Basket Case, and countless other portrayals of a dangerous city. You didn’t see parents pushing strollers at 9pm.

There was an earlier true-crime book about this case called Closing Time: The True Story of the Goodbar Murders. I haven’t read it, and neither of these books are well-known today. I’m not sure how to categorize a book like this, whether to class it as a crime novel, or as some piece of forgotten New York history. Perhaps it does have to do with New York’s history, in particular the city’s appeal to single adults. New York has always been popular with men and women who have no kids, with none of the small-town norms and mores that might seem stifling to some. But there was always a dark underbelly of crime, vice, and dangers lurking on the streets after sundown. Maybe independence comes with a price?

This has got to be one of the worst books I've ever read; it's helpful if you're trying to fall asleep. It's based on the true story of a woman from New York City who slept around with society's lowlifes--and paid the ultimate price for it. This book really drags; the movie changes a few things and moves along at a better pace. I would recommend watching the movie if you can find it; skip the book.

I bought this book because I'd heard about it over the years and I needed new books to read during the pandemic. I can see why this book about a woman with masochistic and sexual thrill-seeking tendencies may have been thrilling and scandelous when it came out in 1975, but reading this book in 2021 I found most of it pretty boring.
That's not to say that it's all bad - it is an interested character study, and the ending is very good. But it will not shock or enthrall a 21st century reader the way it did readers in 1975.

I had read this book when it first came out and was curious to re-read it, especially with the MeToo and TIme's Up movements today. As a novel, it is a page-turner, although it wouldn't be if the author had not given us the ending first, so we knew Something Bad was coming, but we kept reading to see how and when. If you did not know where it was heading, it would have gotten tedious. Many repetitious scenes and lots and lots of armchair psychology attempting to explain the protagonist's behavior. In spite of that, it isn't really convincing. The protagonist is a self-hating (and other-hating) character, self-destructive as a result. It is simply unbelievable that a man like James would have been attracted to her in the first place, let alone be long-suffering in his pursuit of her. He tells her "I find you a charming and interesting person" but she's not charming at all, and isn't interesting either, as you never see her doing anything except in relation to men.

It is a glimpse into the past---the '60s---before AIDS came along, before women really began to define themselves in terms other than the men in their lives (one character asks, why is it when you ask a woman how things are going, she tells you about her men, whereas if you ask a man, he will tell you about work?), in many ways a more innocent time, but also a more brutal and unforgiving one.

none

A glimpse into the darkness of one young woman.