“A first novel that holds little promise of a future.” Thus concluded one 1949 review of Katherine Everard’s Cry Shame!, aka A Star’s Progress. This assessment is funny because Everard was a pseudonym used by American literary treasure Gore Vidal, who’ll be remembered far longer than any of his critics. Cry Shame! tells the story of a girl who becomes a stripper in New Orleans at age thirteen, a wife for a much older man at age fourteen, a Hollywood starlet as an adult, and finally—thanks to romantic misfortune—a broken woman. Today’s critics claim they can see touches of Vidalian genius in various details of the book. Of course they can. This Pyramid edition comes complete and unabridged—except for the bottom half inch of the cover cut off by some shoddy work at the printer—with art by Harry Bennett.
