October 1, 2013
A flapper marries into Chicago's North Side mob shortly before that gang challenges Al Capone's South Siders for control of Chicago's rackets. Vera Abramowitz, young, Jewish and determined to escape her mother, moves into a boardinghouse and gets a job as a typist, as does her friend Evelyn. Although Evelyn's origins are solidly middle class, Vera had a brush with Chicago-style crime early on: Her mother took over Abramowitz's kosher meatpacking plant in the Stock Yards after her father was killed by the notorious Black Hand mob. The friends bob their hair, frequent speak-easies and soon attract gangster boyfriends. For a while, Vera is dangerously seeing both handsome gambler Tony, a Capone henchman, and affable, refined Shep Green, a nightclub owner and kingpin of the North Side gang. When Vera becomes pregnant, Tony absconds, and so she persuades Shep to marry her. Shep's associate Izzy slaps Evelyn around, and when Vera confronts him, he insinuates that he knows about Tony. Aside from the occasional bullet hole in the ceiling of her opulent new home and foulmouthed gangsters interrupting her Women's Jewish Council meetings, Vera settles comfortably into marriage to the mob, Roaring '20s-style. Her support system now includes, besides Evelyn, Basha and Dora, two self-professed gun molls who show the greenhorns the ropes. When Vera witnesses the torture of an underling by Shep and his boss, Dion, she almost leaves, but the birth of daughter Hannah and her luxurious surroundings paralyze her resolve. After Dion is bumped off by Capone's men, hostilities between the two mobs escalate rapidly. The novel gets off to a slow start as Vera hovers on the fringes of Shep's world; it isn't until a third of the way in, as Vera's dilemma deepens, that narrative tension heightens. Clearly, Rosen, a Chicagoan, has done her research to bring this world to life, however the period ambience is disrupted at times by anachronisms like "rethink" and "updated." Once it finds its stride, this novel achieves a breathless finish.
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Starred review from October 1, 2013
Gun molls, speakeasies, gangsters, jazz, flappers, Prohibition, and Al Capone--it's the Roaring Twenties, and Vera Abramowitz is ready to bust loose. Vera, or Dollface, as her North Side "gentlemen's gangster" lover Shep Green calls her, is tired of the stink of the meatpacking industry hanging on her mother's house and escapes to Chicago for independence and a little fun. Fortunately, a pretty girl can drink and dance all she wants in the Green Mill speakeasy. Vera finds passion with a handsome bootlegger named Tony along the way, complicating the solid, safe relationship she has with Shep--well, as safe as a relationship with a high-level gangster can get. VERDICT Rosen, author of the YA novel Every Crooked Pot, has done her homework and written a flashy story that is more than your average gangster noir. As Vera's life unfolds and the consequences of her choices become clear, the novel evolves with her--from a coming-of-age tale, to a love story, and, finally, a lesson on redemption and coming home. Those interested in novels set in the 1920s and all things Gatsby will not be disappointed.--Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL
Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 15, 2013
In her first novel for adults, Chicago writer Rosen presents starry-eyed Vera Abramowitz, who longs to escape the life her single mother plans for her, working in the family's stockyard and meatpacking plant. Vera wants to run with a far more glamorous crowd. Slaving away at menial jobs, she barely earns a subsistence living, but it's enough to put her in proximity to the city's Jazz Age action. It is her good and bad fortune to meet and fall in love with two of Chicago's up-and-coming mobsters, from competing North Side and South Side gangs. And though her passion may be inflamed by Capone henchman Tony Liollo, she marries the relatively safer Shep Green, a flashy bootlegger who battles Capone for control of Chicago's illegal liquor sales. As Vera morphs from a down-at-heels working girl into a gin-and-gems flapper, she unwittingly finds herself at the heart of one of Chicago's most notorious Prohibition episodes, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. With the rat-a-tat tempo of a Tommy gun, Rosen delivers a smart and snappy shot of Roaring Twenties drama.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)