The Home for Wayward Girls: A Novel

Marcia Bradley’s novel The Home for Wayward Girls is as beautiful as it is startling. Protagonist Loretta grows up in a sheltered and abusive house that would be bad enough if only she suffered it, but it is also a home for girls deemed “troubled”. As Loretta ages and becomes close with some of the girls, specifically Elsie, she realizes her time at the home must end, and she begins to plot her escape.

The novel is split between Loretta’s youth and her current life with her husband Clarke as she prepares to speak at a convention on the work she does with unhoused and unemployed women and girls. She’s made her life a model of how to survive, and as the two points of view converge a darker and even more sinister picture of life at the home is revealed.

Bradley expertly renders the fear and will to live beyond the enclosure of the home, and the novel often feels intimate. The author’s note at the end of the book explaining why she wrote the novel sheds light on this feeling. In a world that seems more and more hellbent on keeping women in their place, The Home for Wayward Girls is a refreshing read.