Historical Fiction

 The Tobacco Wives by Adele Myers 

I listened to this audiobook and it was a slow start, so much so that I was considering DNF'ing it. Then, at about the one hour mark it started to get interesting. (I listen at 1.5x speed so the timing may vary) It was also around this time that the time period was fully established; I thought they were talking about the Vietnam era but it was really 1946 and the end of WWII. Maddy's mom wakes her up in the middle of the night, puts her in the car and starts driving. They show up unexpectedly at Aunt Edda's house (her dad's aunt). Mom just drops her off so she can go husband hunting since she is now a widow. Aunt Edda is not expecting Maddy for two more months but she takes her in anyway. It's the busy time for Edda; she has to get the gala dresses ready for the Tobacco Wives and has to bring Maddy along. Maddy doesn't mind, she wants to learn more and maybe help if she can because she loves to sew and wants to be just like Aunt Edda. Mitsy, the head Tobacco Wife, takes a liking to Maddy and even gives her some hand me down dresses to wear to a festival. The next day at Cordelia's fitting Edda gets super sick so they take her to the hospital and leave Maddy at Mitsy's house. Turns out Edda has measles and has to stay in the hospital for a while. Mitsy moves Maddy into her house, then buys basically the entire fabric store to set up a workroom for her. Maddy has her rescheduled meeting with Rose and Cordelia and Cordelia, a grumpy old woman, takes a liking to Maddy. Maddy and Mitsy's godson, David, become friends and have a couple dates. She and her friend Anthony make the dresses for the Tobacco Wives. Maddy discovers that Dr. Hale and Mr. Winston (Mitsy's husband) know that cigarettes are bad for pregnant women and the babies. She accidentally takes a classified letter out of Mr. Winston's trashcan when she was looking for paper to write down the hospital phone number on so she could check on Aunt Edda. Anyway, Mitsy ends up in this hospital worried that she's going to miscarry and while there Maddy sees a bunch of premature babies under lights. She decides to tell David and Anthony about the letter and she and David plan to confront Dr. Hale. He lies to them about it then has David walk his secretary to the bus station since it's late and he yells at Maddy. Cordelia shows up at the end of his tirade and puts an end to it and takes Maddy home. Maddy eventually tells Mitsy who confronts her husband and he tells her it's all under control. The gala arrives, the dresses are spectacular, and Mitsy interrupts her husbands speech to announce that she, her sister (Ashley), and Cordelia are now board members, that the women will not be losing their jobs when the men return home, and two women are being promoted. But she doesn't say anything about the babies. Maddy is upset and returns to Edda's house. Then we have a time jump. We have no idea what happened to Maddy after that summer; did she return home? did she finish high school? We can make assumptions because in the time jump she and Anthony own their own custom clothing store and she and David are married with children and grandchildren. Mitsy shows up and tells Maddy how proud of her she is, and how proud Cordelia was. Then she gives her the papers from that summer so that Maddy can do whatever she wants with them. Maddy is scheduled to testify before Congress and she's going to take the papers with her as proof. Mitsy tells her she did what she thought was right; that bringing down the tobacco industry and causing everyone to lose their jobs didn't seem like the best idea, but now that her husband is dead she and some of the dangers are coming out, she thinks it's time. My biggest issues with this book are 1) that I didn't know the time period until pretty far into the book and 2) the unanswered questions from the main story to the time jump. However, once it picked up I really enjoyed this book and was actively looking forward to listening to it. I was sad when it finished; I wanted more.