The Good Girl

This little-known opus, written in 1912, from a writer known mainly among cognoscenti of supernatural tales, deals with sexual obsession, deceit, and, in its way, love and affection, all within an epoch when such subjects were treated discreetly at best.The story: Paul Vendred, a well-off young man and “survivor” of schoolyard bullying and his late mother’s Calvinistic Catholicism, becomes smitten with Sybil Dover, a beautiful (and married) young woman of great singing voice.. Not too schooled in life’s ways, he inserts himself into her family and its rakish social circle, to the point of, by misadventure, marriage to Sybil’s step-daughter, Louise, whose father, a retired army captain, lives beyond his means by engaging in dubious financial capers. Mr. Dover henceforth bleeds Paul financially to the point of near-insolvency; Paul, meanwhile, begins an affair with Sybil. All ends in tragedy and flight, with Louise suffering a grim fate and Dover fleeing to the Americas in the wake of fraud charges.Besides well-drawn characterizations and a realistic narrative, the book’s other elements include religion, class structures and the mores and morals of the day. The novel was considered indecent when published and was thus criticized by such organs as The New York Times, which castigated it more for amorality than immorality: the author does not judge, sin remains somewhat relative and unpunished in a society that demanded that transgressors such as Oscar Wilde (a friend of O’Sullivan’s) be punished and shamed. As at least a study in situation and character, the book remains interesting, daresay remarkable.