Windy City Newswoman: White Collar Girl by Renée Rosen

In 1955, Jordan Walsh, a recent journalism school graduate, tries to break into the newspaper business as a reporter, but is stymied by the rampant sexism of the era. She lands an entry-level job at the Chicago Tribune, where she works on write-ups of weddings and other events for the society pages, and along with her other female colleagues, edits recipes under a shared pseudonym. From day one, she chafes at the bit, wanting to do more.

Jordan comes from a literary/journalistic family: her mother is a published poet and her father is a journalist working on a novel. Her brother, Eliot, was an investigative reporter until he died in a hit-and-run accident two earlier, leaving the family bereft and broken. Jordan is determined to follow in Eliot's footsteps, but also to make a name for herself.

Many famous real-life names dot the pages of this novel where they are worked in as friends or colleagues of Jordan's parents, but they add color and texture to the story and don't feel like simple namedropping. Actual events of the period concerning politicians and criminals are also part of the stories that Jordan and her fictional colleagues pursue, which add further authenticity.

Renée Rosen's descriptions of the Chicago of the time feel spot on. The seedy bars, diners and dirty streets are very evocative, and of course, everybody smokes everywhere and uses pay phones. It's easy to imagine Jordan confronting cops, political hacks and others...along with her incredibly sexist male superiors and co-workers.

The novel is a fast and compelling read, and covers Jordan's family problems and romantic entanglements as well as her ambition and work. She sounds like a woman that many readers will recognize, if not in themselves, but in the older generations of women who worked so hard to succeed in a man's world.

The author is very careful to provide documentation for the adjustments to the historical timeline, and how she managed to effectively merge real and fictional events. Well done, Renée Rosen.

Note: strictly coincidentally, I recently read and reviewed another novel by Rosen, What the Lady Wants,  also with a Chicago setting, quite enjoyable but not as fast-paced and snappy as this one.  I'll be checking out more of her work shortly.

"On State Street, that Great Street": What the Lady Wants by Renée Rosen

This novel is subtitled "A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age", and it is true that the legendary Chicago department store entrepreneur is a key character, but the narrator and central character is Delia Spencer Caton, who eventually married Field after she was widowed from her first husband, Arthur Caton, the son of the very rich and influential Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court. 

Delia comes from a leading Chicago family – her father is a partner in a leading retail enterprise and the family hobnobs with the other leaders of Chicago business, many with names that became household words, such as the Swifts and Armours of the meatpacking business, and others less well-known now but incredibly influential in American industry, such as Cyrus McCormick who created a revolution in farm equipment and whose company became International Harvester, and George Pullman, an engineer who developed the Pullman sleeping car (for trains) and was founder of an eponymous company town, and Potter Palmer, who developed and operated Chicago's grandest hotel, the Palmer House. 

Historical accounts state that Marshall Field and his first wife, Nannie, had an unhappy marriage. Their constant fights were well-known and not confined to the privacy of their palatial home. Nannie spent long periods of time abroad, with and without the Fields' two children (a third had died very young). This is made abundantly clear throughout the narrative. The novel also describes her as a laudanum (an opiate) addict, but this may or may not be true.

According to the novel, Delia first meets Marshall Field when she is seventeen years old. It is 1871, and the time of The Great Fire that burned down vast parts of the city. Delia and her family are attending a ball at the Palmer House when the fire takes place, and Bertha Palmer, Potter Palmer's wife, introduces them. Delia is immediately smitten and apparently Field, twenty years her senior, is too. 

The Spencers discover that their home and business were completely destroyed. Rebuilding will take quite some time, but just a few weeks later, with his extraordinary business acumen, Marshall Field and his partner have reopened in temporary quarters. 

Around this time, Delia meets the handsome Arthur, whom she will eventually marry five years later. Their marriage brings together money and social prestige, but is portrayed as unhappy. While Delia and Arthur form a close bond of friendship, the marriage lacks sexual chemistry. Delia wants to have a child but it becomes clear that this will never happen. Arthur drinks heavily and though he is a lawyer, he spends his time with his horses and at his club. Despite this, the Catons build a luxurious mansion that backs up to the property of Marshall Field's even more spectacular home.

Arthur has a close relationship with his friend Paxton Lowry (an invention of the author). The two are nearly inseparable, though Paxton works through an array of girlfriends. When he leaves town for New York, Arthur is bereft. Eventually Paxton will return, marry and have a child, another enormous blow for Arthur. Paxton's and Arthur's relationship weaves in and out through the Catons' lives over the years...but eventually Delia and Marshall embark on their own clandestine affair, which per the plot will last over thirty years, and is lavishly described.

Historic accounts vary about the true degree and type of involvement between Delia and Marshall, but in this novel, they are passionate soulmates. Some real-life rumors about them went so far as to say that they had a tunnel built between their homes to enable their trysts.

Eventually, Nannie Field dies abroad in 1900, leaving Marshall free to remarry. Arthur dies in his and Delia's hotel suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York in 1905. Newspaper accounts indicate various causes of death, but there were rumors of suicide and that is one of most the dramatic portrayals of the novel.

Delia and Marshall marry just months later, but the marriage is short-lived due to Marshall's untimely death a year later in 1906.

Historical accounts state that Delia lived on, moving to Washington, D.C., where she became a celebrated hostess. She died in 1938.

Another interesting detail of this novel is the intermittent appearance of Harry Selfridge, a leading employee of Marshall Field & Company, who eventually relocated to London and opened his own celebrated department store, Selfridge & Company, which exists till this day. Selfridge was the colorful subject of a British TV series that ran on PBS's Masterpiece several years ago – Mr. Selfridge.

I enjoyed the true-to-historical detail of Gilded Age Chicago, and the fabulous descriptions of the homes, the clothing and of the surroundings. The author also does an excellent job describing business practices of the period, key events like the Great Fire, The Columbian Exposition of 1893 (Chicago's first World's Fair, and the subject of the superb non-fiction work, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson), the Haymarket Riots, and more. Arthur Caton and his relationship with his invented friend Paxton add drama, but there is a huge amount of supposition involved – a testimony to the author's skill, but that may also feel heavy handed.  

Reaching the Heights – Becoming, a Memoir by Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama is an extraordinary woman and her memoir is equally so. It's a fascinating and inspiring story, and obviously written in her true voice...you only have to be familiar with her speeches and many appearances on TV talk shows to know it. In fact, the writing rings so true that you can "hear" her. Were I still commuting, it would have been a wonderful audio book experience, but no matter, reading it was just fine as it came across as so immediate and animated. The 400-plus pages just flew by.

The book is divided into three main sections, plus an epilogue.

"Becoming Me" explores her childhood and teen years in the working-class South Side of Chicago, and her young adult years as she navigates her Ivy-League undergraduate experience at Princeton, law school at Harvard, and her partner-track work at a leading law firm – where she first met Barack Obama when he came on as a summer associate and she mentored him.

The second section is "Becoming Us", which describes their coming together as a couple, as ambitious young marrieds, and parents to Malia and Sasha. This is where we find out exactly what Barack Obama was doing as a Community Organizer, and how he moved on to the Illinois State Senate, to US Senator and then President of the United States. Through it all, their career and personal decisions for themselves and a couple were completely entwined, so theirs is truly a joint story.

Michelle Obama's professional accomplishments during this time are not as widely known or celebrated as her husband's, but they are equally impressive. She left the law firm, and became one of the forces behind a non-profit organization, Public Allies, which was created to help young people find their way into careers in public service and in non-profits. Following that, she became the Executive Director for Public Affairs at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

"Becoming More" covers the Obamas' White House years. It is fascinating to read how they rose to the demands of their positions, how they made adjustments to the way a First Family lives within the spotlight of the Presidency, and of the many experiences they all had in that setting. The pressure on them was even more intense than on other Presidents and their families, as the first African-Americans in that role. Being the first is always the most challenging and the most scrutinized, and we all know, and mainly due to the efforts of Michelle Obama, they more than rose to the occasion and became a shining example of what America is all about – a concept that is now being torn down and refuted by the Oval Office's current occupant.

Michelle Obama's time as First Lady is over, but at the age of fifty-five, we can expect to see much more from her. Just the other day, it was announced that a half-million dollars of earnings from the sale of her book would be donated to promote education and opportunities for girls. Every day I continue to be impressed by her. She is a force for what is good and positive, and how she reached the place she now occupies as a public figure should encourage millions of average Americans, especially young people, to do and be more. Reading her book can provide the inspiration for that.

Not Forgotten: The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

So beautifully written and moving... a novel that examines the AIDS crisis in 1980s Chicago and also its aftermath, through the life of one particular gay man, and through eyes of his friend, a woman whose brother was one of the early victims. It's a book about hate, and a book about love. A book about fear, and a book about bravery and compassion.

It took me straight back to that period in my own life, working in the fashion business in New York – when so many men I knew were cut down in their 20s and 30s... a neighbor down the hall in my apartment building, the partner of a co-worker, and so many others. It seemed to come out of nowhere, and suddenly there was an epidemic and death was everywhere in the gay community, and touching the friends of those of us on its periphery. It was a complete and utter tragedy that changed so much of life in the city and decimated a large component of my generation.

Despite the sadness of the story, I'm very glad to have read this important work. It's far too easy to forget what those bad times were really like - just 30 or so years ago - and to think what the victims might have accomplished had they not been struck down in their prime. So sad.