But Loigman’s main preoccupation, conveyed with unsparing candor in extended flashbacks, is with the drastically disparate treatment, by their parents and everyone around them, of Ruth and Millie. The novel focuses primarily on Millie and Ruth, bracketing their particular sibling rivalry with the sisterhood of women at war. She and her toddler son, Michael, live with her sister, Ruth, who works in payroll and is married to Arthur, a top armory scientist. Millie, a war widow, works in the arms factory. Arietta, an Italian-American from a vaudeville background, works as a cook in the local cafeteria, where she also belts out numbers to great acclaim. Her family life is happy but always overshadowed by memories of childhood abuse by a cruel, martinet father. Lillian is the wife of Patrick, commanding officer of the Springfield Armory. Loigman’s second novel portrays a sampling of the women whose roles were pivotal during the wartime manufacturing boom. In a Massachusetts armory town, four women negotiate the World War II homefront.
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