Several critics, including the New Yorker's, have compared the book to The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger, 1951), a much shorter coming-of-age novel which mixes satire with seriousness and blasphemy. But Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, was a much more substantial and visible character in his own right than the amorphous Ginny. Holden rebelled against conformity while Ginny conforms to her surroundings of the moment.

A more likely comparison is to Erica Jong's best-selling comic sexual odyssey, Fear of Flying (1973), whose popularity (as Time magazine pointed out) probably made it possible for this first novel to get such a send-off. Once again, though, Alther's book seems somewhat unique in the weakness of her character, who probably has not overcome most of her fears.

Taking the historical view, one could trace the tradition of episodic, bawdy, picturesque novels back to Tom Jones (Fielding, 1749), and Lisa...