Books Set in North America; United States; Chicago, Illinois

White Collar Girl, by Renée Rosen (2015)

 

White Collar Girl is set in the late 1950s and focuses on budding journalist Jordan Walsh.  Jordan comes from a journalistic family – both her father and brother were journalists.  After graduating from college with a degree in journalism, Jordan lands a job with the Chicago Tribune.  She has dreams of landing an investigative position on the city desk, but women journalists were assigned to writing puff pieces.  She is assigned to cover society weddings, cooking and other light “women’s interest” pieces.

 

Jordan’s brother had been killed in what was ostensibly a hit-and-run accident and the driver was never caught.  His death plunges Jorden’s parents into a downward spiral.  Jordan thinks there might be something to her brother’s death.  She learns that he was investigating a horsemeat scandal when he was killed.  Was his death related to a coverup?

 

As a young, new reporter, Jordan realized that she must pursue stories.  She didn’t just settle for writing up the stories she was assigned but sought out stories.  She befriends a source in government who passes on leads. Initially, the stories she writes are credited to her male co-workers.

 

The author attempts to put as many of Chicago’s scandals into this novel with Jordan being the investigative reporter.  The stories that Jordan pursues are based on actual events that occurred in Chicago, but the time frames are not necessarily within the scope of this novel.  The author did accurately portray the trials that a young female reporter would have encountered in the 1950s (some of which are probably still encountered today).  Jordan being the reporter so single-minded just didn’t ring true.

 

In the 1960 Presidential election, President Kennedy narrowly won the election, and largely due to the results from Chicago.  This novel discussed how the election was rigged and that Nixon probably did have the election stolen from him.  Interestingly, White Collar Girl was published in 2015, before there was talk of the 2020 election being stolen.

 

I read Renée Rosen’s book The Social Graces and totally loved it, so wanted to read something else by this author.  While White Collar Girl was good, it wasn’t as good as the first book I read by Rosen.

 

Read:  January 17, 2022

 

3 Stars

Books Set in North America, Washington State, United States

Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson (1995)

 

Snow Falling on Cedars is part trial novel, part mystery.  Set in San Piedro, a remote island in the Puget Sound in the 1950s, it takes place in the years after World War II, where Kabuo Miyamoto, a Japanese-American stands trial for the murder of fellow fisherman, Carl Heine.  Many of the men of San Piedro had fought in the War, and many are still skeptical of the Japanese.

 

Although Kabuo was born in the United States, and thus was American, he was born of immigrant parents.  Even before the War, there was considerable prejudice against the Japanese who lived on the island.  Furthermore, there were laws which prevented its Japanese citizens from owning land.  Underlying this novel is a feud between the Heine and Kabuo families.  Carl’s father had an arrangement to sell Kabuo’s father 7 acres of property for growing strawberries.  Kabuo’s father was making regular payments, but before he could make the final two payments, he and his family were sent off to an internment camp.  While Miyamoto family was interned, Carl Heine’s father died.  Carl’s mother, Etta, was a bitter and prejudiced woman, who took the opportunity to sell the land to another strawberry family.  When the Miyamoto family tried to claim their land, they were surprised to find it had been sold out from under them.  This feud brewed for many years.

 

When Carl was found drowned under suspicious circumstances, the local law enforcement was quick to settle on Kabuo as their prime suspect.  The novel begins with the trial, but the story is told in flashbacks as the reader meets the characters.  The reader learns their backstories and the interactions between the townspeople and the island’s Japanese community.  As evidence piles up against Kabuo, prejudices of the entire community are exposed.  The novel builds the suspense to the end.

 

Read first: December 29, 2003 / Second time: October 21, 2021 (for Hadassah Attorney Council Book discussion)

 

4 Stars