The Girl is a novel by Meridel Le Sueur

Meridel Le Sueur

Meridel Le Sueur was an American writer associated with the proletarian movement of the 1930s and 1940s...

 set during Prohibition

Prohibition

Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...

 and chronicling the development of a young woman from a naive small-town girl into a participant in a bank robbery.

Originally completed in 1939, the book was blacklisted during the McCarthy Era

McCarthyism

McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

 for its alleged Communist

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

ideas. In the 1970s, Le Sueur modified the story, making Girl's baby a girl instead of a boy, and the book was eventually published in 1978. Feminists' interest in the novel led to renewed attention for the author.