Review: The Trouble with You

The Trouble with You by Ellen Feldman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have never read a book by Ms. Feldman before, but after finishing this book, I am going to make a point of reading more of her work.

"The Trouble With You" pulled me in right from the start and kept me enthralled. I never knew that much about the McCarthy Era, and this book taught me quite a bit. Not all I needed to know, but just enough. I never liked politics much in my reading, but this book just touched on it enough to bring it to light and to make it personal to the characters.

As you can see by the book description, it is about a young widow with a child. This woman, Fanny Fabricant, has been taught from the cradle right up through college that her career is going to be as a wife and mother. But destiny has other plans for her, and she takes a job as a secretary at a radio soap opera. Her life goes on, but as I said, fate throws a monkey wrench into her life. And this is where the book gets really interesting. Two men, pulling the wool over the HUAC's eyes, a wonderful career, and then a daughter who takes after her mother and Aunt.

Wonderful writing, identifiable characters, and a great story.


*ARC Supplied by the publisher Macmillan/St. Martin's Griffin, the author, and NetGalley. My thanks to all for this opportunity.


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SYNOPSIS: "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."