The Trouble with You

January 1, 2024
Feldman's latest, following The Living and the Lost (2021), traces the journey of young widow and mother Fanny. She marries Max after college, and they welcome their daughter, Chloe, shortly thereafter. When Max returns from WWII, the young family sets out for the suburbs, only to have their idyllic life shattered when Max suddenly dies, and Fanny is left as sole provider. Fanny and Chloe move to New York City with the help of Fanny's independent, fiery Aunt Rose, who helps Fanny find a secretary job on a radio show, where Fanny works with Charlie, a charming writer. When Charlie is blacklisted, he convinces Fanny to serve as a front so he can continue to write. While Fanny's professional life heats up, so does her personal one when she becomes involved with Chloe's earnest pediatrician. As Fanny uncovers a passion for writing alongside other stirs of the heart, she finds herself torn between her desires and the hard realities of 1950s society. Rich in colorful characters, Feldman's riveting tale is one of resilience, determination, and hope.

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January 1, 2024
Set during the 1950s Red Scare, this novel features Fanny Fabricant, an unlikely heroine who makes a journey from conformity to independence and strength. Fanny Baum, whose mother died when she was a child, marries Max Fabricant just before he ships off to World War II, and she immediately becomes pregnant with their daughter, Chloe. Unlike the husbands of some other women in Fanny's circle, Max returns from the war, but Fanny ends up a single mother anyway when Max dies a few years later. Written in the third person, the story unfurls from Fanny's point of view and, to a lesser extent, Chloe's. Coaxed by her fearsome "maiden" Aunt Rose, as well as her own ennui and financial straits, Fanny gets a job as a secretary at a company that produces daytime radio serials--don't call them soap operas. Feldman does a fine job of evoking the 1950s, using language and cultural references to films, books, and, most of all, social mores to make the period spring to life. She brings Fanny into focus through the presence of her loving and traditional extended Jewish family. Fanny's growing opposition to restrictions on women's independence drives her narrative. Aunt Rose emerges as a hero, bluntly questioning Fanny's timidity and subtly encouraging her niece's growing ambition. Two men vie for Fanny's attention: Ezra Rapaport, a kind and caring family doctor, and Charlie Berlin, a screenwriter with an acerbic wit and a kind heart. Fanny's search for who she wants to be evolves into a captivating love story, complicated by the career-destroying threats of the McCarthy era. Chloe, too, grows from a sad little girl missing her daddy to a perceptive young woman. Feldman has created a compelling woman who knows her own mind and insists on using it.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.