Duchess of Angus

In Margaret Brown Kilik's coming-of-age novel, The Duchess of Angus, Jane Davis has just graduated from college and returns home to the flophouse hotel her mother runs in San Antonio. She quickly discovers that she must navigate the constricting realities of prefeminist America. Race and class segregation, limitations on gender and sexuality, and derogatory attitudes toward Mexicans and Mexican Americans mark the city's social world--and drive Jane's existential ennui. Kilik's own experiences are woven throughout this autobiographical story, written in the early 1950s but only recently discovered by family members. In the spirit of coming-of-age classics like Plath's The Bell Jar and McCullers's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, The Duchess of Angus portrays a young woman navigating a deeply conflicted and rapidly changing world.