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Box-Car Bertha [Thompson], As Told To Dr. Ben L. Reitman ListingsIf you cannot find what you want on this page, then please use our search feature to search all our listings. Click on Title to view full description
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Box-Car Bertha [Thompson], as told to Dr. Ben L. Reitman Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Box-Car Bertha
New York Gold Label Books (c.1937) NO Reprint Hardcover Fair
(no dust jacket) [reading copy only, with heavy external wear, some spine loss at top, faint bookseller's stamp on front pastedown, etc.; on the plus side, the hinges are intact and the book is internally quite clean]. Bogus autobiography of a woman who supposedly "became, in fifteen years of wandering, a hobo, traveling from one end of the country to the other in box-cars, 'decking' passenger trains, and hitch-hiking; member of a gang of shoplifters, with whom she traveled, as the mistress of one of the men, for months; a prostitute, working in a Chicago brothel; the mother of a child of an unknown father; and a research worker for a New York social service bureau." In fact, she was a fabricated character based in part of several women known by the author (including famed radical Emma Goldman, one of his lovers), and on his own experiences as a hobo, political agitator, birth-control proponent and (yes) doctor, specializing in the treatment of venereal disease. However, as several commentators have remarked since the exposure of the book's non-non-fictional status, there is still a great deal of authenticity to be had, in part because Dr. Reitman also incorporated material from hundreds of conversations he had with various tramps and transients he encountered over many years. (Martin Scorsese, early in his career, made a movie based very loosely on this book.)
Price:
10.00 USD
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