Nurse Ratched, George “Pornstache” Mendez, Sister Bridget. Institutional fiction relies on a specific archetype—the tyrannical gatekeeper—that can make or break the latest remix of the genre. In the case of Women of a Promiscuous Nature, Mrs. Maynard simply isn’t strong enough to enter that hall of villains.
As a fictionalized account of the mass quarantine carried out against women during WWII, the novel focuses on a smaller ensemble than is typical for the genre. Our way in is through Ruth, who feels slightly anachronistic due to her 21st-century mores. After being placed in the camp following an altercation with the police—where she did nothing wrong except exist as a confident woman—her modern sensibilities carry her through various punishments and humiliations. This emotional invulnerability, however, makes her feel less like a victim of her time and more like a time-traveling Mary Sue.
The problem may lie in the story’s limited scope. Unlike the heavyweights of the genre, this “smaller troupe” leans too heavily into exhausted stereotypes. We have Stella, a girl whose life is a relentless pile-on of hardship; when her “tragic backstory” is finally revealed, it elicits a “figured that was coming” rather than genuine shock. Then there is Frances, the token “kooky one,” who drifts through the narrative as a walking plot device rather than a fleshed-out human being.
On this limited field, the villains have very little to play against. Mrs. Maynard fulfills the “borderline sociopathic guard” trope but lacks the “devil in the eyes” intensity of a Nurse Ratched. Meanwhile, the camp superintendent, Mrs. Baker, rules with an air of ideological purity, constantly reminding us that her methods will “purge” these women and bring out the [blank] within. Exactly what that [blank] is supposed to be remains ill-defined. Is she molding them into obedient wives? Submissive mothers? We are asked to loathe Baker’s cruelty while simultaneously empathizing with her struggle as the patriarchy threatens her institution.
There is a glimmer of something fresh in the power struggle between Maynard and Baker as they compete for approval from an indifferent masculine board, but it arrives too late in the game to save the narrative. Institutional fiction is a difficult genre to revitalize; we know the tropes, so the burden is on the writer to remix them with depth. Unfortunately, this is a challenge the book doesn’t quite meet.
