The Organdy Cupcakes takes us back to the days when nurses wore little paper caps, lived in residential dormitories with a matron, and dreamed of marrying doctors. Of the three girls -- Gretchen, Nelle and Rosemary -- only Gretchen achieves this, somewhat suddenly, at the very end of the book. Nelle marries a wealthy dilettante obsessed with Ancient Egypt (they don't make 'em like that anymore) while Rosemary dumps her doctor-boyfriend to join the Army nursing corps. (This is probably a wise move, since he has just psychoanalyzed her, which is a poor foundation for any marriage.)
The Organdy Cupcakes a beautiful and lush book, particularly for its setting in small-town New Jersey before it became suburbanized. The details of hospital life are so well drawn that it's hard to believe that Stolz never trained as a nurse.
Reviewed on my blog The Paris Hat: http://theparishat.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-garden.html ( )