In Danzinger's debut 1974 novel The Cat Ate My Gymsuit, Marcy Lewis is a self-conscious, overweight thirteen-year-old with a verbally abusive father, a four-year-old brother whose only friend is his ratty teddy bear, and a mother who is too afraid to stand up to Marcy's chauvanistic father. Marcy is failing gym because she is too embarrassed to let other students see her in a gymsuit, and, as a result, makes up a barrage of excuses to the gym teacher as to why she can't participate. Marcy lives in her popular friend Nancy Sheridan's shadow, whom she thinks only hangs out with her out of pity and obligation to her mother.
Marcy's life changes for the better when the new English teacher Barbara Finney enters her life. A progressive and free thinker, Ms. Finney challenges the students to examine their perceptions of literature, language and life rather than just teaching them grammar and sentence structure. Unlike other "classroom-minded" teachers, she does things like presenting films to the students and taking them to the local hospital to visit sick children and read to them. Ms. Finney forms an after-school club called Smedley for the students and Marcy, afraid to speak her mind for fear of ridicule from other students, joins and begins to foster connections with the other students as well as a sense of self-worth. Through the club she gets to know the outspoken, intelligent Joel Anderson whom she develops a romantic interest in.
