THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIETOWN is a debut work of historical fiction which I think will appeal greatly to book groups and individual readers, especially women in their sixties. In part, that is because the author, Connie Schultz, fits that demographic and therefore does an excellent job of authentically relating memories and feelings about key 20th century events like the assassination of President Kennedy and the publication of Our Bodies, Ourselves. She weaves in commonplace details, too, like watching I Love Lucy on television: "How could one woman get in so much trouble? Ricky would be furious again. And Lucy would be scared of him, as always. Was there a single wife in America who wasn't afraid of her husband?"

Schultz sets her novel in fictional Erietown, Ohio between 1947 and 1994 so as to relate the multi-generational story of a working class family and how much women's lives changed. She explores questions regarding ethnicity and race, physical abuse and marital infidelity, parenting and religious values, class differences, and teen pregnancy. At times, it was difficult to not look at the characters with 21st century eyes; sometimes, I questioned why these daughters, especially Ellie and Rosemary, were not stronger, more sure of themselves and better able to deal with a man like Brick McGinty, former high school basketball star and prejudiced union member whose fear and helplessness kept him from a happier life. It seemed as though the wisdom came mainly from generations on either side: the older aunts/uncles, grandparents and mentors (some were farmers or immigrants and who stepped up to raise their granddaughter or great nephew; one was a coach) and from Ellie's and Rosemary's children, Sam, Reilly, and Paull, who leveraged opportunities and strove to let go of society's limitations. In the end, maybe Brick did say it best: "It's one thing to remember your roots, Sam. Helps us keep our balance. But don't let your roots become your excuse to be stuck."

Formerly with The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, married to Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIETOWN received a starred review from Kirkus.

An excellent narrative of the experience of white women in midcentury USA. Told we’ll from the perspectives of multiple women and generations, I actually bought it for my mother’s birthday.

The Daughters of Erietown won't be for everyone, but those who love it will love it well. Connie Schultz masterfully takes readers into the heart of small-town life with her portrayal of the McGinty family. It's a book about what it means to have dreams meet reality. It's a book about the love of family. It's a book about feminism and class and race and intersectionality. It's a book that's meant to be savored.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

A family was created in the late 1050’s when Ellie, who has the best grades in her class hopes to go to nursing school and then marry Brick. Her unexpected pregnancy puts an end to both their hopes of further education. The dream of being the first in their blue-collar families to attend college is gone. Through their daughter’s interests in women’s issues, Ellie gets a chance to live her life anew through Sam. Their daughter is libera, smart and educated. Of course, there are secrets in this family and Sam discovers some of them. I liked Sam, but my favorite character was Brick, because he allowed me to see how he, too, along with his wife was forced to give up dreams, but it is Ellie, the mom who has the best line. “Don’t be late for your own life.”

There are things that I liked about this multi-generational novel and some that didn’t quite work for me. Family dysfunction abounds with alcoholism, physical abuse, teen pregnancy, adultery, shattered dreams, regrets and resentments and it was predictable. All of this realistic, but it made for a story that I felt I had read before and because of that it took me until the last third of the book to really be engaged. On the positive side, I liked some of the characters and cared about this family, even those imperfect ones who made mistakes and hurt their loved ones. The author does a good job of reflecting on the times, over several decades, the Kent State killings, JFK assassination, and especially on the changing roles of women, which was front and center. I felt like it became more of a substantial story towards the end, when my favorite character, Sam provides the possibility for rising above her family legacy of dysfunction with strength of conviction, acceptance and love. I’m right down the middle on this one and I’ll give it 3 stars.

This was a regular monthly read with Diane and Esil. You’ll have to read their reviews to see if we agreed.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley

Much different than I expected but in a very good way. I'll buy this book as a gift for family members, as I am sure they will enjoy it too. A family saga - very engrossing.

Loved this story of families in NE Ohio. Strong women and the men in their life. These are real life, working class families who lead true, complicated lives. Love Connie Schultz and proud to have read her first novel..

Enjoyable if predictable read. The time frame depictions in the novel, especially the 50s-70s, were excellent. Unfortunately, the characters had a bit more potential than came across on the page. The book title led me to believe that women would be the primary focus but it seems the main male character held the spotlight and the women revolved around and reflected off of him. That was disappointing.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC to read and review.

Oh, this book brought back so many memories as much of it took place during my lifetime. It made me realize how much has changed for women. Like Sam, I came of age when women were taking on more roles outside the home. However, I also recall girls who became pregnant like Sam's mother not being allowed to finish their schooling. Even if a girl was not pregnant but got married while in high school, she was only allowed to attend classes but could not participate in any extracurricular activities. Then there were also the girls who just disappeared because their families sent them away to avoid embarrassment. By the time my own girls reached high school, there were special classes to accommodate the young mothers even allowing them to bring their babies along. How the times have changed! It was a bit challenging in the beginning of the book to establish the character's relationships and timelines, but otherwise I really enjoyed getting to know each one and becoming immersed in their personal stories along with re-living a bit of history. Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

3.5 Stars

At the end of the 1950s, Ellie Fetters wants to be a nurse and Brick McGinty plans to attend college on a basketball scholarship. When Ellie becomes pregnant, those hopes and plans are revised. Ellie and Brick marry and eventually have two children, Samantha and Reilly. Covering most of the second half of the 20th century, the book focuses on the marriage’s ups and downs and its effects on the children, especially Sam.

Character development is the strongest element in the novel. We learn about Ellie and Brick’s backgrounds so we understand the reasons behind the decisions they make, though we may not agree with them. For example, Ellie is raised by her paternal grandparents because her parents abandoned her. The choices she makes for her family are determined by these childhood experiences. Likewise, Sam witnesses the difficulties in her parents’ marriage, most the result of Brick’s behaviour, so she vows to avoid her mother’s disappointments.

All of the characters are flawed; no one emerges as totally good or totally villainous. A man’s choices are reprehensible but the shattering of his dreams arouses our compassion. A woman may be a home wrecker but her difficult life after her father abandoned the family cannot but get our sympathy.

As the title suggests, the focus is on women and how their roles evolved over 50 years. For generations, there was a great divide between what women wanted and what was expected and offered to them. In the 1940s and 1950s for example, Brick’s mother gives birth to twelve children and lives with a violent man, but there is no birth control and never a suggestion that she can leave the abusive relationship though everyone knows about it. Ellie knows that as an unmarried, pregnant woman, she will be shunned; though she wants to be a nurse, she isn’t even allowed to graduate high school because she is pregnant. Beginning in the 1960s, the women's movement and developments in contraception instigated changes in attitudes towards sex and made sexual equality a goal, so Sam has more sexual freedom and can focus on a career instead of marriage if she chooses to do so. Ellie speaks of enjoying sex but being made to feel “’there was something wrong with me. I don’t want Sam to feel that way. I want her to know it’s normal.’”

The theme of the novel is that people change because they seldom get the life they planned. Early on, Ellie thinks, “Everybody starts out as one kind of person and ends up being somebody else. Life does that to you, just as a river has its way with a stone. Even when you don’t notice it, life is rearranging you.” Later, Sam talks to a friend about the things that happen in a person’s life: “’They’re like tornados that pick you up in one place and drop you off somewhere else. And there’s no turning back, no undoing it.’” Another woman tells her adopted son that dreams are always modified by reality: “’nobody gets the life they planned. We get what God plans, and we spend the rest of our lives trying not to hold it against him.’” Ellie tells Sam much the same thing: “’We want to think there are rules in life. That as long as we follow them, everything will be all right. And then God blows up your plans. Blows them to smithereens. And you’re left picking up the pieces and putting your life back together as best as you can.’”

Another theme is the need for friendship amongst women. Ellie muses, “Marriage was often a lonely business, she was learning. Every wife needed her women friends to keep her strong.” Later, a woman tells Ellie that women need women friends: “’We’re with each other from the beginning to the very end, and everything in between. We understand each other. It’s instinctual.’” And Ellie does conclude that “In her own life, it was women who sustained her. All those coffee hours, the camaraderie of canasta, the support she got at church. She still prayed to God and talked to Jesus, but Mary knew her heart.”

The book could use some shortening; there were times when it seemed overly long. The author does realistically portray life for the working class in a blue collar town, but she also seems concerned to add repeated references to historical events like the assassination of JFK, the Kent State shootings, and the Vietnam War, though these events have no direct impact on the plot.

There were things in the book that irked me. For example, Ellie complains to Brick, “’I just don’t understand why you’re allowed to pick up your diploma and I can’t even clean out my own locker. . . . I didn’t expect to be able to go to graduation, but I’ve done all the work. I thought I’d be able to take the final tests and still get my diploma.’” When she says this, no one in their families knows about the pregnancy so how does the school administration know? Brick never plans where they will live for the first three months of their marriage and he and Ellie discuss this problem only on the last night of their honeymoon? And does everyone have an adventurous, unconventional aunt who will come to the rescue?

This book reminded me to be grateful to be living in a time when social mores have changed and women’s options are more in keeping with their dreams and desires.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

This is a lovely but at times painful novel of three generations of women and one man- Brick, who marries Ellie and fathers Sam, Reilly, and Paull. Ranging fron the 50s to the 70s (and ending in the 1990s), it's the story of how things have changed for women over time. Ellie, raised by her grand[arents, loves Brick, the son of an abusive father. They elope, giving up their dreams of college, when she becomes pregnant and settle into a life where he works at the electrical plant and she keeps house. It's not that easy though, because Brick can't keep to himself and this echoes into his daughter's life. He's got a list of no's for everyone but himself. It's hard sometimes to remember what this time frame was like for women; Schultz also touches on class issues we don't think much about anymore, if at all, when Sam dates Harry at college. I was especially struck by Ellie telling Sam that she was 57 and desperate for grandchildren- as if she was ancient and by the newspaper article about Sam being the first female principal at a school in town. I liked these women and I liked Rosemary too. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. An excellent read to remind you of how far we've come.

3.5. I love a good family saga and, while it took about half the book for me to become invested, this one worked relatively well. I really enjoyed getting to know the McGinty family, especially Ellie and Sam, and I appreciated that Connie Schultz incorporated historical events and attributes in a relatively seamless way.

Schultz includes a lot of characters across multiple decades, but their inclusion mostly worked as an attempt to enrich the plot; it wasn't as confusing as I thought it would be. What WAS confusing, however, was the timeline. The dates Schultz includes don't always line up with the ages of the characters; I hope this will be corrected in the published version. I also would have appreciated dates at the beginning of each chapter; it was often difficult to determine how much time had passed between sections.

The Daughters of Erietown is a book that could not be coming out at a better time. Despite being set beginning in the 1950s and then running up through the 1990s, it sounds like so many things still going on in our country right now. This novel is about the struggles of a couple as they marry, have children, trade their dreams in for practical responsibility, and the issues that come along with all of those things.
The social issues spread through this book cover just about everything: race, religion, socioeconomic, feminism, and all of the bigotry that comes with each of those issues.
Every character in this book spends their time learning about themselves through the expectations of those around them. More than once each character fails to meet the expectations set for them, usually, it turned out for the best, but sometimes it did not.
The outcomes of the "daughters" in the book are varied, some success, some failure. The sons hold the same varied states.
It does start out a bit slow, but it is absolutely worth staying with it through the end.

I really enjoyed this book and growing up in small town Ohio, it rang true. The characters were well thought out, although I wish that the male characters had been more fleshed out. Overall, a good read.

If a film is ever made of Daughters of Erietown, the anthem "Bread and Roses" must surely be included in the soundtrack. Like my grandmother, my mother and her seven sisters, the women of Samantha Ginty's lineage worked hard -- often harder than their men -- and hoarded the few joys offered by their limited roles.

It all sounds political, but in Connie Schultz's hands, the story is quite personal and domestic. Ada and Ellie, Sam's mother and great-grandmother, did what they could so the next generation might break a little freer.

For those of us who were college-aged in the 1970s, this story resonates. We were formed by those taboos -- barriers, even -- that decreed as we grew up what was and wasn't possible for women, for poor people, for anyone whose skin wasn't white.

I liked the clear-eyed view of real working-class life. I liked the balance between polemics and intimacy. I liked the homespun-yet-profound wisdom of Sam's forbears scattered throughout the book.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance readers copy.

I was so looking forward to this first novel by Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Connie Schultz and it did not disappoint. As a former newspaper columnist and one of my favorite people on social media, Connie is keen observer of people and the human condition. Having grown up during the same time period as Ellie's daughter, Sam, but across the state in northwest Ohio, I felt a special connection to these characters and their lives of often hardscrabble work and prejudice and little knowledge of what life could be, beyond their little town. She had me at the start as Sam heads of off to college with her L'eggs pantyhose in their little plastic egg-shaped containers and her Love's Baby Soft body fragrance.

This story speaks volumes about the lives of women in small-town America. When Ellie becomes pregnant in the late '50s, she really has few options but to marry Brick, her dreams of becoming a nurse squashed. Her husband, Brick, works long hard hours at a power plant and when he has affairs, it is Ellie who lets him come and Sam who feels her mother's pain and anger.

When Rosie escapes her small town where she stood our for her Italian heritage and living in a single parent family, she dreams big dreams too. But growing up in a neighborhood clearly divided between Blacks and non-Blacks, her life never quite lives up to the promise of her dreams. And these women all are on a collision course coming face to face with broken dreams and broken hearts.

I really liked Sam and watching her grow into an intelligent and insightful young woman, And her taste in music is pretty spot on! Sam's mother Ellie was likable and I enjoyed watching her and her relationship with Sam evolve as her daughter matures. There were neighborhoods of blue collar, working class families across Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and they are brought to life with Connie's eye for detail.

This story reflects the time period of the mid-20th century so well. While I was too young to remember the assassination of JFK, I remember a friend's father's horrible racism and bigotry. I remember seeing brothers of friends going off to VietNam. And I remember the shootings at Kent State. Connie Schultz has done a marvelous job of weaving history and humanity together in this story, although I do feel it may appeal more to women of my late baby-boomer generation than to younger 20 or 30-something women. Then again, I could be wrong. Let's hope.

I must be on a roll for family dramas, because yet again I have another one. This story is historical fiction and centers around Ellie and Brick, high school sweethearts and the life they build together.

Ellie is brought up by her grandparents and Brick is brought up in an abusive household. They had a very precarious start to their love, but after Ellie gets pregnant, they run off to get married and move to Erietown to raise their family.

Their relationship is far from idyllic, with multiple affairs and hidden secrets that will stay with this family for many years. However, you will see both Ellie and Brick fight for their love and family,

Along with our main characters, you will also spend time with their children Samantha and Reilly and a cast of other characters that really make this story shine.

The author really committed to this family with love, heartbreak and everything in between. By the end of this book I felt like they were my own family and really felt for them and all the decisions they made. You will be asking yourself many times…What Would I Do? You might not agree with the decisions that are made, but you will never fault them.

This is a beautiful debut novel. One note it is rather long, but I don’t think you will feel much with the way this book flows.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"Don't be late to your own life." - A nugget of wisdom passed from mother to daughter in "The Daughters of Erietown".

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Connie Schultz makes her fiction debut with a novel set in her own backyard, a fictional Northeast Ohio locale known as "Erietown", which lies somewhere east of Cleveland. I was drawn to this book for several reasons. First, I've admired Schultz's writing for years and wanted to see her pen turned to fiction. Second, I was born and raised in Cleveland and went to Kent State, (which also figures in the story, and where Schultz also teaches journalism - although I've never met her in person). Third, I knew that this would be a story of my mother, my grandmother, my aunts and, to some extent, the men they married.

The narrative stretches several decades, from the late 1940s and over several generations of women growing up and raising families in small town Ohio. I recognized many personal traits of the women in my family. And I can honestly say, there were moments in the book that helped me understand their experiences and perhaps soften my own judgement of their life choices. I'm less able, or perhaps less willing, to soften my judgment of the men. Although Schultz makes a good case for how they too get trapped and beaten down by their so-called working class lives in the factories, mills and plants that dominated the Midwest in the second half of the Twentieth Century. It enabled these men to reach for their slice of the American Dream, only to find that perhaps the dish wasn't as fulfilling as they had been told it would be. The women realize it sooner, but feel compelled to keep the dream together for the sake of everyone else, their husbands, their kids, their country, their god.

My main critique, such as it is, would be to wonder if the timeline was too long. This isn't Tolstoy or Dickens. There aren't thousands of characters and family trees in which you would need to cover decades of history. I feel like a tighter focus on the lives, exploring the relationship of Sam and Ellie in the 1970s in greater detail, for instance, would have made for a stronger emotional reading experience. There was more gold to mine in the part where Sam introduces her mother to "feminism" and Ellie slowly turns from dismissal to curiosity in the books her daughter is reading, and radical ideas she is sharing. There are a lot of gaps in time that feel like someone has fast-forwarded over important parts, when I wanted to hit pause and look at the picture for a while. I wanted the Director's Cut and this seems like the Theatrical Release.

Also worth noting - in both the plus and minus column - is that Schultz bravely navigates into the racism that runs through white blue-collar communities, both the casual kind that the women display, to the aggressive overt offensiveness of the men. I certainly was surrounded by it growing up. Even at a young age I somehow sensed it was wrong and ugly and not something to be repeated or shared, even though I heard it all around me. So when the story started down the path of what Sam would do when she realized the adults she most admired in her life had these racist tendencies, I was intrigued. I had been looking for someone to write THIS story. How does one reconcile their parents and grandparents' racism with the people who have loved and nurtured them? Accept it? Change it? (How?) Challenge it? Cut ties? Alas, we only get a taste of that story.

Finally, the other aspect that really won me over was the exploration of what a poor kid must navigate when they get away from their crumbling town and start moving in bigger, wealthier circles and succeeding in life. And I mean, a really poor kid. As Sam's hometown friend observes, "We're people in transition no matter where we are. We go to college and the dorms look nicer than the houses we grew up in." And later, from her father: "You're going to spend the rest of your life straddling two worlds. That's what happens when people like us go to college". This passage reminded me instantly of Elena Ferrante's "The Story of a New Name", and how Lenu escapes her Naples' slum, receives a top quality education, and is still not like her classmates and never will be. She becomes a successful writer, only to return home and find she is no longer like any of them either. Nor do the people from her neighborhood care about her success - they define success by your marriage and family. As both books explore, when you are the generation that breaks the class ceiling and rises, you become the bridge between these worlds, but burned bridges can turn into islands on which you find yourself unwittingly stranded. And yet. And yet, this is your life. You still have to show up for it, and not feel guilty about where you came from, or where you ended up.

I was hoping Schultz was going to go all-in on the class issues, but she backed off them. Often, to my disappointment, for some melodramatic domestic drama involving affairs and mistresses and unplanned babies. Frankly, I think Schultz sold herself a little short at times when the story kept coming back to marital problems. There are readers who may think, "hey!, that sounds a lot more fun to me than a novel about race and class! that's boring and makes me uncomfortable!" To each their own. I do hope that Schultz dives deeper in her next novel and confronts these issues head on.

I'll be buying copies of this book for my mom and her sisters once it is published. I look forward to discussing it with them.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for my review.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

The Daughters of Erietown was one of my highly anticipated reads for 2020. I'm a fan of Connie Schultz. I really, really wanted to like it, but I can't say it was a winner.

What I liked:
I was born and raised in Northeast Ohio but don't live there anymore. My grandparents were factory workers. I think Schultz did a fantastic job of portraying small-town, mid-century, blue-collar life. The pockets of immigrant communities within each town is also spot-on. I really enjoyed getting this glimpse into the not-so-distant past.

For the most part, I really liked Sam's character. Her compassion, insight, and fortitude were refreshing.

What I didn't like:
Pretty much everything else. I saw another review that said the book was unfocused, and I wholeheartedly agree. It's a perfect description. For example, the prologue seems to set up an incident that occurs just before Sam leaves for college. But we never really find out what that incident was because none of the conflicts/climaxes in the book take place in that specific time frame. There are huge jumps in time, some with corresponding dates, some without. It felt like Schultz needed to visually plot her timeline to get a better grasp on her own story. I certainly had trouble keeping up over the span of 50+ years. The plot was...meandering and seemed to center on the actions of Sam's father. But again, we never really get a satisfactory resolution; everything remains nebulous. I think Schultz did a good job of creating Brick's character - he would have fit in well in the real mid-century Northeast Ohio. But that didn't make him likeable. Likewise with Ellie. The real thorn in my side, though, was Rosemary. I think Schultz's intent was to make Rosemary a sympathetic character, but from my perspective, she failed. I could not stand Rosemary and did not, at all, understand her motivations. I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't mention specifics. I'll just say that Rosemary's actions seemed contrary to the backstory crafted by Schultz.

Overall, I think Schultz's fiction debut has good bones. She obviously knows how to inhabit her chosen time and place. And she developed some well-drawn characters. But overall, the story felt disjointed and suffered from a few irredeemable, groundless characters. I give three stars because I kept reading until the end, but I probably wouldn't recommend The Daughters of Erietown.

Ellie Fetters is adopted by her grandparents after her parents divorce and her father remarries. This separates her from her 2 younger sisters.

In high school she meets & falls in love with Brick Mc Ginty a star basketball player who has an abusive father.
He gets a scholarship to Kent State and Ellie wants to go to nursing school.

Their plans are shattered when Ellie becomes pregnant. They elope and live in Erietown with Ellie's aunt..

Brick's mother dies of cancer and Ellie learns her husband cheated on her with a nurse when she's in the hospital giving birth to their second child, a son.

Years later Brick has an affair with Rosie Russo who came to town to live with her aunt. she is a waitress at a bar.. She discovers she's pregnant after Brick ends the affair,

Two years later Brick learns he has a son by Rosie and tells her he'll give some of his paycheck to her and some of the college savings he has for his other children...

One day while playing softball Rosie and her son Paul are in the stands watching him as well as Ellie and their children.. When Brick confronts Rosie about this he tells her he'll no longer give her any money..

Rosie goes to Brick's house and tells Ellie that she's been having an affair with Brick and that her son Paul is Brick's son.

Brick is furious at her and tells her they are done, with no money coming in Rosie commits suicide,.

Brick keeps tabs on Pau over the years and when Paul's on is old enough to start school his aunt tells Paul that he has a siste, Samantha who is the principal at the school her son will be at..

Samantha remembers meeting Paul when his mother came to tell Ellie about the affair and her son.
Samantha also remembers meeting Paul when he was a young boy when Rosie brought him to the cafe where she worked..

There are no hard feelings and the past is buried..









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