The Trouble with You: Book summary and reviews of The Trouble with You by Ellen Feldman

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Janet Schneider

1950s Soap Opera Writer During The Red Scare
In Ellen Feldman’s timely new novel The Trouble With You, Fanny Fabricant has barely had a chance to welcome her beloved and happily-returned WWII veteran husband home when a sudden event radically alters her anticipated life course. Raised to be an excellent suburban housewife, she finds herself instead job hunting as a single mother in a postwar world where women were leaving the workforce, not entering it. Aided by her intrepid Aunt Rose, Fanny lands a coveted secretarial spot on a national radio show, where she begins to rebuild her life as an independent woman at a time when her peers are constrained by what their parents, their husbands and their country tell them they are allowed to have.

There is a lot at stake in Fanny’s world, with politics beginning to impact many workplaces. While navigating an increasingly complicated work environment, she is also raising a young daughter and gently dipping her toe back into the dating pool of the early 1950s, where she finds that most men have conventional expectations.

Faced with a moral dilemma and the chance to help a desperate family friend support himself, Fanny begins “fronting” for a blacklisted writer in what leads to a successful working/writing partnership. As this life-changing new career transforms both Fanny’s professional and personal lives, it transports the reader back in time to the early Cold War years when the American entertainment world was rocked by allegations of Communist influence.

As a lens into an earlier time with parallels to today, The Trouble With You delivers a moving look at the direct impact of paranoia and misinformation on individuals. In Fanny, author Ellen Feldman has created a riveting heroine who makes choices which feel authentic and true in a time when traditional gender roles are just beginning to expand. Fanny finds independence, a career and even love despite the inevitable conflict between tradition and a new reality. Not only is she a character well worth spending time with, her story is an inspiring and thoughtful exploration of the evolving nature of female ambition.

Book clubs will find much to discuss and ponder. Highly recommended.

Elizabeth@Silver's Reviews

Elizabeth@Silver's Reviews - A satisfying ending - historical fiction fans will enjoy
It is post World War II, and we meet Fanny Fabricant, her husband, Max, and their daughter Chloe. Fanny was the lucky one because her husband came back from the war. She wasn’t lucky for too long, though, because her life changed one night.

We follow Fanny as she goes to work much to the gossiping of other women at this time because women didn't work, but she had no choice.

THE TROUBLE WITH YOU dragged until mid point, caught my interest after that, but it still wasn’t a book I was anxious to get back to even though Ms. Feldman’s writing and research were well done.

My favorite character was Chloe…she was so sweet and innocent. Fanny was a well-thought-out character and one ahead of her time. I enjoyed following Fanny and was hoping for the best for her in the social attitudes of this era.

The ending was satisfying, and the book will be enjoyed by historical fiction fans and women’s fiction fans. 4/5

Thank you to the publisher for a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Other books by Ellen Feldman at BookBrowse