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A young woman finds love with a talking dog in this 1970s cult classic that satirizes our deluded expectations of finding "the right one."
Helen lives in a Manhattan hotel that doesn’t allow pets. So she teaches her dog Pablo to speak and walk upright, and dresses him in a suit with his hat pulled low so he can pass for a handsome man. They share their deepest secrets, and spend their days reading the newspaper and lounging in bed. In a bewildering turn of events, Helen and Pablo fall in love.
Guided by the “anything goes” wisdom of 1970s-era women’s magazines and advice columnists, Helen sets out to build the life she wants, fielding advances from an arsonist, a pervert, and a radio DJ with extremist views. She also seeks the counsel of self-styled gurus—including her mother, a psychic who keeps a cohort of lovers, and her father, an herbalist with a devoted following. Helen's friends and acquaintances are scandalized by her new relationship, leaving her alone to deal with Pablo, who is troublingly indifferent to her happiness and entirely distracted by his own.
First published in 1975, Rosalyn Drexler’s The Cosmopolitan Girl is an outrageous comedy that upends the promise of heterosexual love, and lampoons the enduring American tradition of ceding attention to grifters and blowhards.
“Drexler's novels have an edge like a jagged tin can meeting a bare foot . . . The raunchy and the ridiculous are Drexler's home territory . . . Moving back and forth between the absurd and the everyday, Drexler puts both in their place—on the same plane.” —Sara Sanborn, The New York Times
“If there is anyone with a lingering doubt that feminism can combine first-rate writing and first-rate humor, Rosalyn Drexler puts an end to it. The Cosmopolitan Girl makes us see and love the absurd.” —Gloria Steinem
“Rosalyn Drexler is always brilliant, gay, depressed, and hopeful—hurling watermelons, paper bags full of vodka, and tastefully poisoned candy kisses from a high window on the heads of unsuspecting passersby. Her book is wonderful.” —Donald Barthelme
“Drexler rushes in where Roth and Jong have only gingerly tiptoed. Relentlessly mimicking the explicit sexual confession, pushing novelistic anthropomorphism to the limit and delighting in the send-up of contemporary lifestyles.” —Booklist
“The Cosmopolitan Girl is a Cosmo spoof and a parody of the Erica Jong woman-as-sex-object novel; and Drexler uses dirty words with delirious grace.” —Library Journal