The Pink Dress: A Memoir of a Reluctant Beauty Queen

For fans of Little Miss Sunshine and Secrets of Miss America, this memoir from a national award-winning author reveals the reality of being the first Guyrex Girl in the 1970s. Beauty pageant stories have never been this raw, this real.

Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn't have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in college, she became the first prot?g? of El Paso's Richard Guy and Rex Holt, known as the "Kings of Beauty"--just as the 1970's counterculture movement began to take off.

A pink, rose-covered gown--a Guyrex creation--symbolizes the fairy tale life that young women in Jane's time imagined beauty queens had. Its near destruction exposes reality: the author's failed relationship with her mother, and her parents' failed relationship with one another. Weaving these narrative threads together is the Wild West notion that anything is possible, especially do-overs.

The Pink Dress awakens nostalgia for the 1960s and 1970s, the era's conflicts and growth pains. A common expectation that women went to college to get "MRS" degrees--to find a husband and become a stay-at-home wife and mother--often prevailed. How does one swim upstream against this notion among feminist voices that protest "If You Want Meat, Go to a Butcher!" at beauty pageants, two flamboyant showmen, and a developing awareness of self? Torn between women's traditional roles and what women could be, Guyrex Girls evolved, as did the author.

Author: Jane Little Botkin
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 09/10/2024
Pages: 304
Binding Type: Paperback
ISBN: 9781647427405


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/0001

About the Author
National award-winning author Jane Little Botkin melds personal narratives of American families often with compelling stories of western women. A member of Western Writers of America since 2017, Jane judges entries for the WWA's prestigious Spur Award, reviews new releases, and writes articles for various magazines. Her books have won numerous awards, including two Spur Awards, two Caroline Bancroft History Prizes, and the Barbara Sudler Award; she has also been a finalist for the Women Writing the West's Willa Literary Award and Sarton Book Award. She is currently working on a biography of Mary Ann (Molly) Goodnight for the University of Oklahoma Press. Jane blissfully escapes into her literary world in the remote White Mountain Wilderness near Nogal, New Mexico.