CWLU Herstory

In Laurie Lowenstein's debut historial novel, main character Marian Elliot Adams an outspoken advocate for sensible undergarments for women, sweeps onto the Chautauqua stage under a brown canvas tent on a sweltering August night in 1917, and shocks the gathered town of Emporia with her speech: How can women compete with men in the work place and in life if they are confined by their undergarments?

The crowd is further appalled when Marian falls off the stage and sprains her ankle, and is forced to remain among them for a week. As the week passes, she throws into turmoil the town’s unspoken rules governing social order, women, and African Americans.

The recently widowed newspaper editor Deuce Garland, his lapels glittering with fraternal pins, has always been a community booster, his desire to conform rooted in a legacy of shame—his great-grandfather married a black woman, and the town will never let Deuce forget it, especially not his father-in-law, the owner of the newspaper and Deuce’s boss. Deuce and his father- in-law are already at odds, since the old man refuses to allow Deuce’s stepdaughter, Helen, to go to Chicago to fight for women’s suffrage.

Lowenstein deals with the complex issues of race and gender along with love and loneliness.

"Unmentionables is a sweeping and memorable story of struggle and suffrage, love and redemption...Loewenstein has skilfully woven a story and a cast of characters that will remain in the memory long after the book’s last page has been turned."
--New York Journal of Books

Laurie Lowenstein is going on a book tour so be sure and circle your calendar when she arrives in your town.