Savage Girl
(Penguin Random House 2014)
“Sooner or later, a historical crime novel is bound to drag you down some dark alley and into the nastiest, most lawless precincts of the period. Jean Zimmerman followed this tradition in her first novel, The Orphanmaster, a descent into the hellish criminal haunts of 17th-century New Amsterdam. In Savage Girl, this canny author puts all that aside and turns to the Gilded Age for a sweeping narrative, set within the cloistered ranks of high society in 19th-century Manhattan, that raises touchy questions about what it means to be civilized.” The New York Times Book Review
“…Zimmerman’s superior historical thriller will suck most readers in instantly.” Publisher’s Weekly starred review
“Suffused with a gothic aura of dark suspense, this is a finely wrought psychological work…, rich with historical detail. The mystery stretches from society’s heights to its absolute depths and touches everything between, always increasing in dramatic tension. Zimmerman’s settings spring off the page, from the stinging dust of the American desert to the dank despair of the Tombs prison in New York. Immensely readable, Savage Girl takes the reader by the throat and doesn’t let go.” Booklist
“Spring Break Read: Consider this the compulsively readable love child of Edith Wharton and Edgar Allan Poe.” Oprah.com
“True Detective fans lamenting the long wait for season two will be drawn to the creepy Edith Wharton-meets-Stephen King page-turner.” The Hollywood Reporter
“A wild ride.” Good Housekeeping
Jean Zimmerman’s new novel tells of the dramatic events that transpire when an alluring, blazingly smart eighteen-year-old girl named Bronwyn, reputedly raised by wolves in the wilds of Nevada, is adopted in 1875 by the Delegates, an outlandishly wealthy Manhattan couple, and taken back East to be civilized and introduced into high society.
Bronwyn hits the highly mannered world of Edith Wharton–era Manhattan like a bomb. A series of suitors, both young and old, find her irresistible, but the willful girl’s illicit lovers begin to turn up murdered.
Zimmerman’s tale is narrated by the Delegate’s son, a Harvard anatomy student. The tormented, self-dramatizing Hugo Delegate speaks from a prison cell where he is prepared to take the fall for his beloved Savage Girl. This narrative—a love story and a mystery with a powerful sense of fable—is his confession.
The Orphanmaster
(Penguin Books 2012)
“”As in the best historical fiction, she has created a kind of truce between the authority of the past and the accessibility of the present, revealing to us what it once meant to be alive, and what that history means to us now.” USA Today review of The Orphanmaster:
The Orphanmaster has been named a Washington Irving Book Selection of the Westchester Library Association for 2013.
“Jean Zimmerman’s The Orphanmaster is a rip-roaring read, packed with action and dark suspense… I was captivated by Zimmerman’s unforgettable evocation of New Amsterdam.” NPR names The Orphanmaster one of six best historical novels of 2012!
Best Summer Read from USA Today!
Summer Pick Shout-outs from the New York Daily News, Newsday, Los Angeles Times, Arizona Republic, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tampa Bay Times, and others!
“As in the best historical fiction, [Zimmerman] has created a kind of truce between the authority of the past and the accessibility of the present, revealing to us what it once meant to be alive, and what that history means to us now … on nearly every page there is some unobtrusively offered word or description, of food, of architecture, of dress, that brings the period and its people into clearer focus.” – USA Today”Absorbing period fiction with the requisite colorful characters of the era.” – The New York Daily News
The Orphanmaster takes place during the years 1663 and 1664, in and around the tiny, hardscrabble Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now present-day southern Manhattan. Orphans from the colony are going missing; a serial killer may be on the loose and among those looking into it are a beautiful fiercely resilient 22-year-old Dutch female trader, herself an orphan, and a dashing English spy who becomes her love interest. The cast of colorful, unforgettable characters includes the colony’s corrupt Orphanmaster, an African giant, and an Algonquin trapper who may be possessed by a demon that turns people into cannibals.
Zimmerman recreates the scenes, textures and aromas of early New York City and its surrounding wilderness, conveying the harsh and earthy reality of life in the 1600s, as well as immersing the reader in the commerce and politics of the time, in a novel which is both a gripping historical thriller and a rousing love story.
Love Fiercely: A Gilded Age Romance
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2012)
“An exquisitely-rendered portrait of passion and privilege in the Gilded Age.” Deborah Davis, Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X
Contemporaries of the Astors and Vanderbilts, Edith Minturn and Newton Stokes grew up together along the shores of bucolic Staten Island, linked by privilege – her grandparents built the world’s fastest clipper ship, his family owned most of Murray Hill. Theirs was a world filled with mansions, balls, summer homes and extended European vacations.
Newton became a passionate preserver of New York history and published the finest collection of Manhattan maps and views in a six-volume series. Edith became the face of the age when Daniel Chester French sculpted her for Chicago’s Columbian Exposition as The Republic, a colossus intended to match the Statue of Liberty’s grandeur.
Together they battled on behalf of New York’s poor and powerless, as reformers who could never themselves want for anything. Throught it all, they sustained a strong-rooted marriage.
John Singer Sargent captured the pair at the height of their youthful romance, a portrait that captured the imagination of their peers.
From the splendid cottages of the Berkshires to the salons of 1890s Paris, Love, Fiercely is the real story of a world long relevated to fiction.
The Women of the House: How a Colonial She-Merchant Built a Mansion, a Fortune, and a Dynasty
(Harcourt 2006)
“A tale of the American dream with a feminist twist.” Library Journal
“Zimmerman’s prodigious research unearths a mother lode of data on colonial American women.” Publisher’s Weekly
The remarkable Margaret Hardenbroeck Philipse arrived in New Amsterdam from Holland in 1659, a brash and ambitious twenty-two-year-old bent on making her way in the New World. She promptly built an empire of trading ships, furs, and real estate that included all of Westchester County. The Dutch called such women “she-merchants,” and Margaret became the wealthiest in the colony, while raising five children and keeping a spotless linen closet. Mining extensive primary sources, Zimmerman brings us into the parlors, bedrooms, countinghouses, and parties of early colonial America and vividly restores a forgotten group of women to life.
Made from Scratch: Reclaiming the Pleasures of the American Hearth
(Free Press 2003)
“Zimmerman makes a solid case that true liberation may take a 360 degree turn, right back to the oven and stove. It may once have required an exodus from the kitchen to feel free, but we now know an unwavering truth: hearth is where it’s at.” Danny Meyer, Second Helpings from Union Square Café
“The domestic achievements of our mothers and grandmothers were not trivial. As Jean says, it is time that we reclaim the pleasures that domesticity allows us.” Linda Cobb, The Queen Of Clean
In this celebration and reappraisal of “women’s work,” Jean Zimmerman addresses the tug Americans feel between professional and private life. With sharp wit, she argues that amid today’s domestic vacuum, we still hunger for a richer home life — a paradox visible in the Martha Stewart phenomenon, in service magazines like Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal (whose combined circulation nearly doubles that of Time and Newsweek), and in the booming business of historical restorations.
Made from Scratch traces how traditions passed between generations — baking from scratch, cherishing heirlooms, piecing a quilt — sustain our souls in an ever more synthetic world where we buy “homemade” goods without irony. Zimmerman follows the homemakers in her own family: her indomitable grandmother, who managed a farm, strangled chickens with her bare hands, and sewed all the family’s clothing; her mother, who rejected country life yet kept a fastidious suburban home where gender roles stayed firmly in place; and herself — a wife and mother shaped by a Women’s Movement that insisted the domestic sphere was something to flee. She questions the unexamined trade-off we’ve made in a shockingly brief time, “progressing” from home-raised chickens to frozen dinners to mall food-court McNuggets. What is lost when we no longer engage, as individuals and community, in the ancient rituals of food, craft, and shelter?
Raising Our Athletic Daughters: How Sports Can Build Self-Esteem and Save Girls’ Lives
(Main Street Books 2011)
“Raising Our Athletic Daughters captures the spirit of all-star athletes and today’s sports-loving girls who want to grow up to be strong, capable women. It’s the jock version of Reviving Ophelia.” USA Today
“For its inspirational value, this is recommended for all public libraries.” Library Journal
“We need this book. Strong girls make strong women, and athletics is an important part of that…. Raising Our Athletic Daughters is a must read.” Billie Jean King
“Every parent with a daughter ought to read this book.” Joan Ryan, Little Girls in Pretty Boxes
From professional leagues to high school fields, girl athletes are achieving record breakthroughs — seen in the WNBA’s first season and women’s victories at the 1996 Olympics. Female athletes have become media darlings, with teenage girls posting pictures of Rebecca Lobo, Mia Hamm, and Gabrielle Reece alongside pop stars.
Yet studies paint a sobering picture: girls lose significant self-esteem during adolescence, leading to eating disorders, substance abuse, and depression. In Raising Our Athletic Daughters, journalists Zimmerman and Reavill explore how sports can change this, gathering firsthand stories from across the country showing that athletics reduces teen pregnancy and substance abuse while boosting college attendance — a compelling case for leveling the playing field for girls everywhere.
Tailspin: Women at War in the Wake of Tailhook
(Double Day 1995)
A strength of Tailspin is Ms. Zimmerman’s ability to see past the redictable heroes and villains… few will fail to find it stimulating and provocative.” The New York Times
“…Comprehensive and authoritative… provocative.” Publishers Weekly
“An intelligent, inside look at one of the most embarrassing scandals in naval history… a wealth of insight…an excellent read…a brisk, readable style.” Village Voice
“Lively, detailed…Zimmerman’s Tom Wolf-esque “new journalism” style, as heavy on sights, sound effects, jargon and description as it is on “facts,” really works here to flesh out life as it is, not as the official documents say it is.” Baltimore Sun
“…A lively anecdotal style backed by meticulous research.” Us
The Tailhook scandal will doubtless go down in history as the most sordid and divisive episode in the history of the U.S. Navy, rocking it to the highest levels. In this first full-length chronicle of the scandal and its aftermath, Jean Zimmerman explores the link between the events of that hot, sloppy night in Las Vegas and the legal ban on women in combat. That link forms the substance of this bracing narrative as it portrays one of the most traditional organizations in the world, the U.S. Navy, on the brink of historic change. The reverberations of the Tailhook affair, with their profound implications for the role of women, will ultimately be remembered as changing the face of war. The saga of an institution and the scandal that forever changed it, TAILSPIN is a defining work of military history and feminist scholarship.