Forever Amber

A friend recently introduced me to I Heart Radio, a website dedicated to hosting various podcasts. In addition to contemporary podcasts, the website also hosts several radio programs from the heyday of  broadcast radio.

I'm particularly fond of the Jack Benny programs;  I was a fan of the television show as a child. Although the radio show was before my time, I'm familiar with most of the cast from the radio days, as they were later brought over to the TV show.

I was listening to a podcast a few days ago in which Jack had walked to a pubic library near his home. There was a bit of commotion in the "library" caused by the radio programs' musical quartet singing the Lucky Strike jingle inside. Of course, Jack apologized to the librarian, who told him that there hadn't been that much of a row in the library since they put "The Kinsey Report" on the shelf next to "Forever Amber".

This joke received a big laugh from the studio audience. Not being familiar with "Forever Amber", the joke went over my head.

Naturally, I had to do a web search for Forever Amber. Wikipedia says it is an historical romance novel written by Kathleen Winsor and set in 17th-century England during the reign of Charles II.

The article goes on to say that the novel, published in 1944, was banned in fourteen U.S. states as pornography. The Massachusetts attorney general cited "70 references to sexual intercourse, 39 illegitimate pregnancies, 7 abortions, and 10 descriptions of women undressing in front of men as reasons for banning the novel". The novel was condemned by the Catholic Church for indecency, which naturally helped boost sales.

The novel was also banned in Australia in 1945.

I assumed that the banning of the novel was simply due to the prudish attitudes of folks in the 1940's. Naturally, I had to find a copy and read it for myself.

As I write this, I've read 80% of the novel. This being the last day of the year, it's unlikely I will finish reading the novel in time to include it in my list of novels read in 2020.

The portions of the novel which cover the history of 17th century England are very well written. The story not only deals with the life of  the fictional "Amber St. Clare", but with life within the court of Charles II.  In the novel, Amber manages to survive the Great Plague of London,the Great Fire of London and the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

Although not blatantly pornographic, the novel does indeed have the "70 references to sexual intercourse, 39 illegitimate pregnancies, 7 abortions, and 10 descriptions of women undressing in front of men" mentioned as reasons for the banning. Amber has sex with and/or marries successively richer and more important men as a way to get to the top of English society. She is involved in the murder of one of her husbands and has at least 2 abortions and three illegitimate children. With no morals to speak of, Amber St. Claire is certainly no role model.

Forever Amber  was the best-selling US novel of the 1940s. It sold over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, and went on to sell over three million copies. The book's success is another example of how well sex sells.