The Trouble with You — Ellen Feldman

"Rich in colorful characters, Feldman's riveting tale is one of resilience, determination, and hope." -- Booklist

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 a young woman whose rosy future is upended in a single instant. Raised never to step out of bounds, educated in one of the Sister Seven Colleges for a career as a wife and mother, torn between her cousin Mimi who is determined to keep her a “nice girl” -- the kind that marries a doctor -- and her aunt Rose who has a rebellious past of her own, Fanny struggles to raise her young daughter and forge a new life by sheer will and pluck. When she gets a job as a secretary to the “queen” of radio serials -- never to be referred to as soaps -- she discovers she likes working, and through her friendship with an actress who stars in the series and a man who writes them, comes face to face with the blacklist which is destroying careers and wrecking lives. Ultimately, Fanny must decide between playing it safe or doing what she knows is right in this vivid evocation of a world that seems at once light years away and strangely immediate.