Reformer's Apprentice: A Novel of Old San Francisco Book

The Reformer?s Apprentice opens in San Francisco in 1875, when Frieda, seventeen, is living a double life both as an aspiring "Elevated Feminine Spirit" and an unpaid, overworked cook at her father?s kosher boardinghouse. Lonely and miserable, she consults her feminist group leader who offers lessons in loving everyone. Her misinterpreted efforts result in near rape. Rescued and shamed by her father, she finally agrees to marry. The novel takes a twist when she chooses not the bum who tricked her, nor the compliant boarder her father chooses, but chance acquaintance, Bennie Goldson, founder of an Arizona-Sonora border outpost. Ever since the days of Mark Twain and Bret Harte, much has been written about life in the early American West, but primarily from the Christian male point of view. The Reformer's Apprentice, the story of a young woman in San Francisco's vital and significant Jewish community, affords a good look through a window rarely opened into the early days of the American West.

San Francisco Chronicle

"Compelling..The Reformer's Apprentice is warm and engaging." Date, 8/17/96