When I was putting together the Romancelandia Glossary, “wall banger” was one of the terms that was new to me. My mother, who worked in a library while pregnant with me, used to say that I never defaced books as a small child. How, I thought, could anyone want to throw a book against the wall? That was before I encountered Whitney, My Love, a rapemance which should be thrown—or wedged under a wobbly table in a diner, or used for firestarter, or relegated as paper in an outhouse somewhere.
Book details:
Title: Whitney, My Love
Author: Judith McNaught
Original publication date: 1985, revised edition 2006
Setting time & place: “Regency” England and France
He is… A 34 year old duke, rich and known as a scandalous rake
She is… a 19 year old tomboy reformed in Paris to a great beauty and wit
Reasons to read this title: None. Unless you want to see how awful it really is.
My review of Whitney, My Love
Is it a romance novel? Ugh. It follows many romance conventions, but sexual violence by the “hero” breaks it for me.
Is it a must read romance novel? No.
Content warnings for this book: rape, violence against women, gaslighting, misogyny, women as birthing vessels. Some hints of pedophilia and incest, too.
Whitney, My Love was a DNF for me. I made it to 80%, which is after the “love interest” Clayton buys heroine Whitney from her father for an obscene amount of money, beats her with a riding crop (a scene toned down for the new edition), rapes her because he’s jealous, and is remorseful enough to write the whole thing off as a financial loss and leave. But by then Whitney, apparently suffering from Stockholm syndrome, realizes that she really truly loves him and wants to marry him after all–although she’s hoping to avoid marital sex, because as far as she knows sex is rape and it’s painful and terrible. I officially stopped reading partway through the wedding night scene. Clayton says,
When I am inside of you, I will put the seed of my own life into you and leave it there for you to keep and shelter within you—a symbol of my love and need for you, like your betrothal ring.
And, of course, he promises not to hurt her. This leads Whitney to overcome her fear of sex, as she says,
…it wouldn’t matter if you hurt me every night—as long as you always say those things—about wanting to be a part of me.
And that moment there, which seems to be saying that sexual violence is fine as long as it leads to babies? Wall banger.
Or, since I am not going to chuck my Kindle across the room like I would if I had a paper copy of this book, a search of reaction gifs on social media for “nuke it from orbit” and “die in a fire”.
I did a lot of livetweets with this book as it got worse and worse. I was definitely warned that it was terrible. I persisted. In this particular case, I wish I hadn’t.
But, hey, I’ve only given you two quotes. Maybe I’m taking things out of context and Judith McNaught deserves more of a fair shake. Okay, let’s start with her introduction to the revised version. She says, let’s see here… She says,
Filled with zeal and confidence, I named the heroine Whitney after my daughter and the hero Clayton after my son
Why… why would you do that? Name characters who are going to be sexually involved with each other after your children? Did I mention that Clayton beats Whitney with a riding crop and rapes her?
Maybe it’s just that she’s not good with coming up with names. Every secondary character has a super white bread name: Paul, Elizabeth, Emily, Peter Nicki, Edward, Anne… Anne Gilbert, in fact, leading me to believe that McNaught read L.M. Montgomery at some point.
But what if Gilbert Blythe had continued to hide his attraction to Anne with ever escalating teasing and bullying? What if he made her cry by kissing her?
His mouth crushed down on hers, mercilessly bruising her lips, forcing them to part from sheer pressure. Whitney writhed futilely in his iron embrace while tears of impotent rage raced down her cheeks. The more she struggled, the more insolent and punishing his mouth became, until she finally grew still, defeated and trembling in his arms.
That’s way sexier, right?
No, Judith McNaught, it is not. Clayton is not a sexy hero, Clayton is a terrible person.
Clayton, by the way, is the Duke of Claymore. And a “claymore,” by the way, is a Scottish broadsword. But Claymore is not a Scottish dukedom. It’s somewhere a day’s ride from London. Georgette Heyer died a good decade before this book appeared, but if her old shade knew that this was going to be considered in the same genre as her work, you could absolutely draw some serious power from the turbine in her grave, because in addition to the open door sex scenes, there is only the slightest veneer of historical era on this story. Claymore is one thing, but there are also the repeated mentions of Whitney’s hair, which is generally tied back with a velvet ribbon.
With her glossy tresses caught at the nape in a wide velvet bow, she reminded Clayton of a little girl who ought to be wearing white stockings and a ruffled dress, sitting on a swing, while the boys argued over the honor of pushing her.
McNaught seems fond of velvet: Clayton attends his wedding “resplendent in rich royal purple velvet.” Whitney calls him “my lord duke,” when Debrett’s advises us that dukes are addressed as “your Grace.” I could go on, but I won’t.
There’s also the head hopping, which bothered me at the beginning, but hardly seems worth mentioning when compared to everything else in the book/trashfire. The breaking of Whitney’s spirit. The references to women as property. Clayton’s plunging tongue. The terrible uselessness of every character who is supposed to be an ally to Whitney.
All of which leaves me with the million dollar question: why was this book a best seller? Why did people read this and translate it and give it accolades? Why? Was 1985 so backward a moment in time? I was 3; I don’t remember.
The best I can figure out is that McNaught did do a couple interesting things with this book.
First, she started with a tomboy heroine who is smart and goal oriented: young Whitney has mastered things like Greek and circus riding to impress her father and a neighbor she’s in love with. The mean girls are mean, but Whitney is spunky! It’s easy to want her to win in the opening of the book.
Second, she sets up three pretty plausible love interests: Paul, the hometown boy; Nicki, the French playboy; and Clayton, the rich asshole. Before Whitney pins everything on Clayton and subsumes her own personality, there’s a moment about halfway through the book where she wishes she could marry all three and I was definitely voting for a poly situation where the dudes learn to share and become less douchey because of it. But they don’t, and everyone is terrible right up to the end. Paul turns out to only want her for money. Clayton only wants to break her. And Nicki… I kept waiting for him to come back because he actually fell in love with her after knowing her, not just lusting on sight, but when he does, she’s already stupidly pining for Clayton and she turns down his marriage proposal.
Third, there are occasional moments of witty banter between Clayton and Whitney.
“Missing you?” she giggled incredulously. “I could cheerfully murder you.”
“I’d come back to haunt you,” he threatened with a grin.
“And that,” she said, “is the only reason why I haven’t tried.”
It’s not enough to outweigh the rest of the Terrible for me though.
Fourth—no, there is no fourth. That’s all I can think of that I liked about this book. But there was literal bodice ripping.
She stood there, staring at him with tear-brightened eyes. He surged to his feet. “Turn around!” he snapped. Before Whitney could utter a protest, he caught her by the shoulders and whipped her around. With one jerk, he ripped her dress down the back and the sound of tearing fabric screamed in Whitney’s ears, while satin-covered buttons scattered across the carpet to shine in the firelight.
Overall, it’s a bit like The Sheik, but four times as long. And, in my opinion, four times as unnecessary to the world.
