In New York City after the end of World War II, Fanny Fabricant, along with her daughter Chloe, welcomed her husband Max home from the war in The Trouble with You by Ellen Feldman arriving on bookshelves February 20. A college graduate, Fanny thought she was prepared for a life as a wife and mother until tragedy struck the young family.

Fanny soon finds herself selling her home and in dire need of finding work. With a cum laude degree in the liberal arts from Barnard College, she could not find a job calling for that kind of background. With the help of her Aunt Rose who knows Alice Anderson, a writer of radio serial scripts, Fanny secured the job of Alice’s secretary to support herself and Chloe.

 

Two men eventually attract her attention: Charlie Berlin, another script writer who is a step away from being blacklisted during the McCarthy Era, and Ezra Rapaport, a pediatrician who wants to marry Fanny partly to rescue her from working to support her child who is his patient.

 

But Fanny does not want to quit work if she remarries because her boss is giving her a chance to write some scripts, and Fanny genuinely enjoys her job. Charlie appreciates Fanny’s efforts at script writing and soon talks a reluctant Fanny into being his “front” once he is blacklisted. While both men love her, Ezra wants to turn her back into a housewife, and Charlie cannot marry her or she would be blacklisted by association. Which pathway forward will Fanny choose?

 

Ellen Feldman is well educated like her protagonist Fanny as she attended Bryn Mawr College, from which she holds a B.A. and an M.A. in modern history, and she did graduate studies in history at Columbia University. Having  worked for a New York publishing house, Feldman writes both fiction and social history, and has published articles on the history of divorce, plastic surgery, Halloween, and many other topics. She lives with her husband in New York.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 5, 2024.

I would like to thank St. Martin's Griffin and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.