City of Girls
A young woman arrives in 1940s New York to live with her aunt who owns a crumbling midtown theater.
Where City of Girls keeps showing up
Five of our editors' lists feature this novel.
Also by Elizabeth Gilbert
Books in conversation with City of Girls
A few of the closest reads from our full list.
What you might want to know about City of Girls
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
At eighty-nine, Vivian Morris answers a long-overdue letter and recounts her summer of 1940, when she moved into her aunt's seedy Midtown theater and learned the city, its showgirls, and her own appetites.
City of Girls is fictional but set in the real world of 1940s New York theater, with Elizabeth Gilbert drawing on archival research about Broadway, the wartime city, and the lives of women in the period.
No. City of Girls is a novel and very different in tone from Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir Eat Pray Love. It is closer in spirit to her earlier fiction, especially The Signature of All Things.
City of Girls was written by Elizabeth Gilbert, published in 2019 by Riverhead Books.
City of Girls is 496 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, City of Girls takes most readers 7 to 11 hours to finish.
City of Girls is a standalone novel by Elizabeth Gilbert, not part of a series.
City of Girls is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
