Happy Release Day!
Congratulations Ellen
on the release today of
The Trouble with You!
The Trouble with You by Ellen Feldman
Historical Fiction, 356 pages
Published February 20, 2024 by St. Martin's Griffin
In an exuberant post WWII New York City, a young woman is forced to reinvent her life and choose between the safe and the ethical, and the men who represent each.
Set in New York City in the heady aftermath of World War II, when the men were coming home, the women were exhaling in relief, and everyone was having babies, The Trouble with You is the story of Fanny Fabricant, whose rosy future is upended in a single instant. Educated for a career as a wife and mother, she is torn between her cousin Mimi, who is determined to keep her a “nice girl,” and her aunt Rose, who has a rebellious past of her own.
Forging a new life, she gets a job in radio serials. Then through her friendship with an actress who stars in and a man who writes the series, she comes face-to-face with the blacklist, which is wrecking lives.
Ultimately, Fanny must decide between playing it safe or doing what is right in this vivid evocation of a world that seems at once light-years away and strangely immediate.
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first line.)
First lines—"December 25, 1947 ~ She was going to be a flower girl. She was six years old, well five and a half, and had a red velvet dress with a red satin sash because it was a Christmas wedding, and she was going to walk down the aisle with a basket of rose pedals and drop them on a long silk carpet."
Once again, I found myself totally engrossed in an Ellen Feldman novel about the past. I love her historical fiction stories.
The Trouble with You takes us into the life of Fanny Fabricant, a single mom just trying to make ends meet. When she takes a job working for a radio serial producer, she is introduced to a whole different world from the sheltered life she had led.
And once again, Ms. Feldman introduced me to a part of history that I wasn't that familiar with—the blacklisting of the writers and others after the war. Ms. Feldman writes so well and makes each story enjoyable, with her interesting characters and beautifully written prose. Each story is educational, while also entertaining.
The Trouble with You is the perfect story for all historical fiction lovers. Highly recommend.
I received a copy of The Trouble with You from the publisher via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.
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About the author
Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Scottsboro, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and Lucy. She writes both fiction and social history, and has published articles on the history of divorce, plastic surgery, Halloween, the Normandie, and many other topics, as well as numerous book reviews. She has also lectured extensively around the country and in Germany and England, and is a sought-after speaker to reading groups both in person and by telephone.
She grew up in northern New Jersey and attended Bryn Mawr College, from which she holds a B.A. and an M.A. in modern history. After further graduate studies in history at Columbia University, she worked for a New York publishing house.
She lives in New York City and East Hampton, New York, with her husband and Cairn terrier named Lucy.
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