Zolotow places her altogether in seven or eight and has her raped before the age of nine, but he has been reading Marilyn ben Hecht’s childhood, and that is a rainbow of tear-washed factoids. We are told of the scrubbing of floors, nights on knees for prayer, revival meetings with religious fanatics, beatings with a hairbrush, even the accusation she stole a pearl necklace, to which she refers: “I have never forgotten the shame, humiliation, and the deep, deep hurt.” On Saturday night, living with a factoidal family, she was obliged to take her bath last in the dirty bath water of the others! What an imagination she possessed: of clean America forgiving her any sin after that fearsome immersion! Only Richard Nixon thinks as well! Once Grace McKee left her a factoidal fifty-cent piece, and it was taken away because she dirtied her clothes. At one foster home she sleeps in a closet without windows and is raped by the wealthiest boarder in the house, who invites her into his room. Yes, it is all in Zolotow (out of Hecht), and it is all untrue.
