Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane

The book opens with a scene of violence, and from there it goes downhill. A little scrapper of a boy named Jimmie is fighting the thugs of Devil's Row with the help of other street urchins from the neighborhood who represent Rum Alley. And we're not talking about hair pulling; we are talking about throwing stones, destroying clothes and bloody faces. Then comes an older boy named Pete, but instead of saving Jimmie, he teases him. But he has your back.

The house is even darker than Jimmie's Rum Alley piles of gravel because Mom is a raging alcoholic, Dad is a brute, and brothers Maggie and Tommie seem to have targets on their foreheads. It is complete chaos in the house.

A few years later, Tommie died and so did Dad. Jimmie has become a bully and a monster himself, hating everything in his path and itching for the next fight. He's a teamster with street rage long before the term was invented, and he'll make mincemeat with anyone who comes across his path.

Here comes that kind of Pete again, the one who "helped" Jimmie, and now he's a stout, well-dressed dandy type. At least in Maggie's eyes, anyway. They start dating, which Maggie sees as a great opportunity to get away from the terrible life of her on the block. Pete loves some entertainment for him, so he and Maggie attend all kinds of "wacky" (again, for her) theatrical events where the audience is filled with other hardworking immigrants. It's better to be beaten up by mom at home, that's for sure.

However, Mom and Jimmie aren't impressed with the whole bond between Pete and Maggie. It doesn't matter if you're poor, you still have moral standards and that Maggie, well, she's putting the family in a bad light by spending all sorts of time with that Pete. So they threw her out of the apartment. She now she has no choice but to be with Pete. Nice call.

Jimmie tries to defend the family honor by beating up Pete while Pete is at work, so he's not handsome. The good times between Pete and Maggie come to an abrupt end. As long as the day is, Pete leaves Maggie for Nellie, an old flame who clearly has more sophistication than Maggie (who she is not naive and wide-eyed like Maggie is).

Now Maggie doesn't know where to go. Mom is busy slandering her with her neighbors (sweet mom, huh?), So that's the ways to Maggie (hence the book's subtitle). Crane does a little trick with smoke and mirrors showing us a prostitute wandering the streets but without directly telling us that she is Maggie. We know better, though. Unfortunately, the scene does not end well, as a boy with "bloodshot eyes and dirty hands" follows "the girl" (17.17) to the river. Do the math.

We find Pete drunk as a skunk with a bunch of "ladies", including Nellie. They all take advantage of his generosity and then leave him unconscious on the floor.

Jimmie returns home to his mom, categorically reporting that Maggie is dead. Mom has a spectacular fit, while her neighbors make feeble attempts to console her. The book ends with Mom promising to forgive Maggie. Um ... too little, too late, mom.