Two women. The lives they built. The choices that could cost them everything.
New York City, 1939. Elena Wagner appears to have everything she ever wanted. A successful husband. An adorable daughter. A place among friends on the Upper West Side. But as her husband draws her deeper into the city's fascist movement, she learns that belonging comes at a price. The rallies grow louder. The lies grow easier. And the woman she's becoming is someone she barely recognizes.
Mary Simons has chosen a different path. In a world that tells women what they can’t do, she is determined to pursue an advanced degree in pharmaceutical research, work that could save countless lives. But it also pulls her two hundred miles from her husband. The cost of her ambition is an empty apartment to come home to.
As war threatens to tear their worlds apart, Mary fights to close the distance between herself and the husband she loves, and promises Elena a safe place to land—if escape is even possible.
Both women must decide what they're willing to sacrifice, and what they refuse to surrender.
For readers of Kristin Hannah' Fiona Davis, and Marie Benedict.
Two women. The lives they built. The choices that could cost them everything.
New York City, 1939. Elena Wagner appears to have everything she ever wanted. A successful husband. An adorable daughter. A place among friends on the Upper West Side. But as her husband draws her deeper into the city's fascist movement, she learns that belonging comes at a price. The rallies grow louder. The lies grow easier. And the woman she's becoming is someone she barely recognizes.
Mary Simons has chosen a different path. In a world that tells women what they can’t do, she is determined to pursue an advanced degree in pharmaceutical research, work that could save countless lives. But it also pulls her two hundred miles from her husband. The cost of her ambition is an empty apartment to come home to.
As war threatens to tear their worlds apart, Mary fights to close the distance between herself and the husband she loves, and promises Elena a safe place to land—if escape is even possible.
Both women must decide what they're willing to sacrifice, and what they refuse to surrender.
For readers of Kristin Hannah' Fiona Davis, and Marie Benedict.
The click-clack staccato of William’s typewriter kept Elena company more often than her husband did. The sharp strikes seeped through the thick oak of his office door, a dull music to the monotony of her day. During winter in Royal Oak, fifteen miles north of Detroit, where the snow was deep and the air was frigid, her husband was always nearby, but he was never really there.
“I want to go play.” Gertrude, Elena’s five-year-old daughter, wrapped her purple-mittened hand around Elena’s arm and tugged her toward the door. Gertrude had dressed herself today. Her brown cotton coat hung crooked from her shoulders, buttoned with the left side higher than the right. Her bunched stockings were mismatched, one green and black-striped, the other red with white dots. A green knit cap perched sideways over her straight blond bob.
Elena twisted out of her daughter’s grip. “It’s snowing, darling.” And the last thing she wanted was to be dragged outside. Elena had never enjoyed the winter cold, not as a young child in Romania, not while growing up in Philadelphia, not as a newlywed in New York. But after the warmth of those years in Florida, her body refused to adjust to the frigid temperatures again. “Play with your doll instead.” She picked up Gertrude’s Shirley Temple doll from the sofa, the blond mohair curls now frazzled, a pinky finger broken off at the tip. Craze lines covered the paint like spider webs.
Gertrude’s brow furrowed. “No Shirley.”
“Then draw a pretty picture for your father.” Elena nodded toward the wooden shelf in the corner, stacked with coloring books and crayons in a worn cardboard box.
Gertrude stomped her booted foot, a dull thud against the Karastan rug. “Come outside with me, Momma.” She crossed her arms and jutted out her chin.
“Stay in here and be a good girl.”
“I don’t want to!” Gertrude yelled, much louder this time.
Elena closed her eyes, long enough to gather the patience to keep her words soft. “I’m not going out in the cold right now.” She glanced at her watch. Three o’clock. Three more hours until William would come out of his room. Three more hours of having to deal with Gertrude alone.
Her daughter slammed her bedroom door.
The typewriter stopped clicking. Then, it started up again.
Elena exhaled. “Can’t wait till you go to school next year,” she murmured as she headed toward the kitchen, at the opposite end of the house.
As she took a large metal pot from the cupboard, the metallic screech of the phone made her jump. She didn’t bother to pick it up. The calls were never for her. They came for William, from New York, D.C., Boston, Detroit. Sometimes Senators. Sometimes Congressmen. Sometimes the Radio Priest.
The radiator rattled, its heat too thin to mask the cold. The faucet shivered as she filled the pot with water and placed it on the stove. She dumped in chicken breasts from the icebox and watched the water cloud around them. Boiled chicken. It was the only thing she made for dinner now. The stack of her mother’s Romanian recipes lay buried in her cedar chest, untouched since they’d moved from Florida.
After William’s cancer surgery, he refused to eat her favorite meals. They were too greasy, or cheesy, or spicy. He wanted boiled chicken, sliced zucchini, and a glass of warmed milk every night. Bland and boring, just like her life. She hated it in Royal Oak, but it was the punishment she deserved. Because she’d had an affair and William had forgiven her, without taking everything away.
The kitchen window fogged as the rising steam met the cold glass. Through the blur, the Crucifixion tower of the Shrine of the Little Flower, Father Coughlin’s church, loomed in the distance.
The water boiled. Elena caught her reflection, distorted and elongated on the pot’s curved side. Her face was thin and drawn, her blue eyes hollowed. She never wore red lipstick anymore.
The front door creaked open. Elena knew without even looking that her daughter had defied her. “Gertrude!” she called out, making her way to the open door.
Elena pulled her sweater tighter across her chest. The wool had become thin at the elbows, the knit unraveling slightly where her arms bent. She’d noticed the damage months ago. The old Elena would have covered the holes with embroidery or bits of silk, making the damage look like design. Now she didn’t care.
Wearing only thin slippers, Elena stepped onto the patio. Her teeth chattered. She wrapped her arms around herself, cursing her daughter under her breath. “If you don’t come inside right this minute, I’m going to tell your father,” she yelled into the cold.
Gertrude’s small figure bounced through the snow. Her green knit cap bobbed up and down, brown boots leaping over mounds of fallen snow that billowed into soft powdered clouds with every step. So carefree and happy.
With a sigh, Elena went back inside and closed the door behind her.
An hour later, the typewriter stopped. William came out of his room. He was thin as a pencil now. Cancer had taken away his round cheeks, but his skin still remembered the past. It sagged, crinkled into jowls. He looked over his gold-rimmed spectacles. “Where’s Gertrude?”
Elena flicked her wrist in the direction of the front yard. Her husband never asked about her. Since moving from Florida, William had stopped being kind. At first, she’d convinced herself that this was only temporary, that eventually he’d forgive her and their relationship would get better. But after more than three years, she had stopped believing it ever would.
William frowned. “I told you not to let her out there alone.”
Elena didn’t bother to respond. It was easier than investing time in an argument.
He opened the front door and stepped outside. Cold swept in, brushing across Elena’s bare ankles. “Gertrude? Where are you, princess?” he called out.
Elena leaned against the doorframe, watching.
Dusk dulled the colors of the day to grays as a snowball launched toward William, clipping his shoulder.
“Got you, Daddy!” Gertrude’s laughter filled the air. A laugh like Elena used to have, when life was about good food and fun times. Before Clewiston, and Gertrude, and Clark. Elena bit down on the inside of her lip.
William’s smile returned.
Another snowball flew in, hitting him in the leg. “Got you again!” Gertrude called out.
He crouched, scooping a clump of snow with his bare hands from the accumulated pile at the base of the steps. He patted it into a ball and raised his arm.
“No, Daddy! Don’t throw it!” Gertrude shouted. “I’m not ready.” She continued to giggle.
He dropped the snowball with a laugh.
More snowballs soon headed his way.
He ducked and dodged, with exaggerated grunts. “You’re too good at this, I give up,” he said, holding up both hands in mock surrender.
Gertrude ran toward him, launching herself into his arms. He hugged her, whispering secret words that Elena was never allowed to hear.
“Did you have fun today?” William kissed Gertrude’s reddened cheek as he brought her inside.
She shook her head and glared at Elena. “Momma’s no fun.”
Elena slammed the front door closed.
He raised an eyebrow. “We’ll have to talk to your mother about how to do better.” William took Gertrude’s mittens off and rubbed her fingers warm.
Elena wished the sight of them together wouldn’t hurt so much. “Gertrude and I had a grand time today,” she said, “until she went outside without my permission. She should be punished, not rewarded.” She set the dishes on the table.
The dining room chair scraped against the worn linoleum as William sat down. He picked up his fork and speared a piece of sliced zucchini, his eyes on the far wall as he lifted it to his mouth and chewed slowly.
She sat beside him and cleared her throat.
Instead of turning her way, he glanced at Gertrude and rolled his eyes.
Once again, she giggled.
Elena took a deep breath. “I’m sorry you’re so disappointed by me—”
“You could have played with her,” he said, finally looking her way.
“I did, and then she did the opposite of what I told her to do.”
He lifted one finger and held it in front of her. “We’re not going to make this an argument.” His voice was too calm, but his words too sharp. He picked up his glass of milk and raised it toward Gertrude. “Cheers, my princess, to a lovely dinner,” he said before taking a long sip.
Elena lowered her eyes. There were never any cheers offered to her.
William wiped droplets from his short mustache with a cloth napkin, then patted Elena’s leg with his hand. “I came out early because I have news.”
“Another trip?” she asked. Two months earlier, he’d gone to Washington, D.C., to meet with U.S. Senators for a week. During the summer, he’d visited Europe for a month to lobby for funds. He was in Massachusetts at least four times a year, meeting with investors.
When he smiled at her, it reached his eyes. A common occurrence in the man she first married, nearly extinct in the man he was now. “You are going to love this news.”
She hesitated, unsure if she loved much of anything anymore. Lately, she tried her best to convince herself to be grateful. For her daughter who she spent every day with. For her husband who’d forgiven her betrayal. For everything she had because of him.
“Father Coughlin called,” he said.
Elena placed sliced chicken on Gertrude’s plate and poured a circle of ketchup beside it. “You should have asked him to come over.” Even now, three years after she’d first met the Radio Priest, there was a thrill in his presence.
“He’s in Great Barrington,” William said, “starting to plan for the upcoming election.”
“Are you meeting him up there?” The Hilltop estate in Great Barrington was where William had spent months after they moved from Clewiston, organizing the Union Party’s presidential run and courting the movement’s wealthiest donors, while she’d been left in Royal Oak, alone with Gertrude, away from everyone.
“I don’t like it when you’re gone for so long,” she added. As frustrating as William could be, it was better with him around. She hated dealing with Gertrude by herself.
“I’ll be going there more often.”
“Why would you think I’d love that?” Elena reached for her glass of wine and drank it too quickly, wincing as it burned down her throat. She pushed back her chair to pour another glass.
He put his hand on hers to keep her seated.
She stopped. He hadn’t touched her in months. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to keep his hand there or remove it immediately.
“Because it won’t be as far for me to travel anymore,” he said.
Elena frowned. “Unless Michigan and Massachusetts have moved closer together without me noticing—”
William didn’t let her finish. “It’s going to be a much shorter trip because we’re moving.” He took off his glasses and locked eyes with Elena.
Gertrude walked over and tugged at the sleeve of William’s sweater. “Make a snowman with me, Daddy?”
“Too dark,” he said gently. “Go play by yourself for a while.”
She obeyed instantly, skipping into her room to retrieve her wooden doll trunk. When she came out, she scooped up her Shirley Temple doll from the floor on her way to the sofa and plopped onto the cushions. She hummed to herself as she removed an organdy pleated dress from the doll and replaced it with a flowered dimity one from inside the trunk.
Elena turned her attention back to her husband. “Are you suggesting that we move to Great Barrington?”
His fork grated against the porcelain plate as he scooped up the last bite of chicken. “No.”
Her pulse quickened. “I don’t like it when you play these kinds of games, William.”
“If you’re happy here, then we don’t have to go anywhere else.”
He’d given her no such choice when they moved from Florida to Michigan. “Where exactly are you planning to take me?”
He leaned toward her. “New. York. City.” Each word became its own sentence.
Elena’s eyes widened. The memories spun. Radio City. Fancy restaurants. Broadway shows. The fabric store on West 37th Street. “Are you serious?”
He nodded.
“But what about your work?” Since 1936, he’d been writing for Father Coughlin’s weekly periodical, Social Justice. Besides Gertrude, it was the thing he cared about most.
“In New York City, I’ll be in the middle of it. Father Coughlin decides what the movement needs, the donors pay for it, the men on the ground carry it out.” He set down his fork. “I’m going to coordinate between the three. Our movement is growing, Elena.”
Movement. Always the movement. She should have known. Elena stacked their now empty plates and made her way into the kitchen.
He followed her with the rest of the dishes and placed them beside the sink. She turned on the water and watched the basin fill.
He handed her a dish. She scrubbed it with a soapy rag and rinsed it clean.
“We’re all part of this fight,” he said. “Everyone has a role to play, even you.”
Elena placed the plate on the rack and took the second one from his hands. Their fingers didn’t touch. “Exactly what role am I supposed to be playing?”
He didn’t respond right away.
From the living room came the soft sound of Gertrude singing to her doll or herself, oblivious.
When Elena turned to William, he was staring out the window. The church tower glowed crimson in the distance. “The government keeps letting people into this country. Taking our jobs, changing who we are as a nation. We all need to fight back.”
When she didn’t respond, he turned to her. “Ellie,” he said, as if the nickname would comfort her, “surely you can see what an important role we all have?”
“And what is that?” Right now, she was caring for Gertrude, lonely and merely existing. She avoided news about the chaos in Europe. She tried to avoid any news at all. There was enough to be depressed about already.
He sighed. “You know they don’t belong here.”
They. Immigrants, like she was. Jews, like her father. Elena’s hand tightened on the dish towel. She took a breath and picked up another plate from the stack.
“This country must protect itself,” William said. “That’s what Father Coughlin is doing. That’s why we need to stand with him.”
We? No. This movement had nothing to do with her. She was in Royal Oak because her husband was there, nothing more.
He continued. “If Huey Long had survived, that last election would have been ours.” His tone held a trace of sadness. Huey Long had been planning a third-party run for president. But in September 1935, he had been assassinated before he could run. “Things are aligning now. People are ready to listen. Aren’t you excited?”
No, she wanted to scream. She wished he could be who he was, before Florida. Before Gertrude. Before the Depression. But she’d learned what happened when she reminisced about the past. The subtle reminders of what she’d done to deserve this life they had now. It was better to agree and be grateful. “I’m looking forward to being near good fabric stores again,” she said. Her sketchpad and fabrics lay in the same cedar chest as her mother’s recipe cards, locked away since they moved to Michigan three years ago. If she could be surrounded by soft silks and stiff organdies, maybe she could figure out a way to be happy again.
“You’ll be able to get to your fabric stores,” he said. “But we’re going to have a lot of other things to do once we’re there.”
Other things. She didn’t dare examine those words too closely. The isolation had been a punishment, but also a barrier—from his world and everything he’d come to believe. It meant she never had to decide what she thought about it. But at this point, she could handle any other things he required. She just couldn’t stand being in Royal Oak any longer.
Tonya Cam’s latest work, The Seduction of Belonging, is a masterpiece of historical fiction. I reviewed her debut novel, Learning to Breathe Again, and I fell in love with Mary and Elena. I found Mary’s exploration of pharmaceutical science fascinating. I was thrilled to learn that Tonya had chosen to continue their story. In The Seduction of Belonging. Elena was not happy in their new location, but was thrilled when her husband announced they were moving to New York. She appeared to have everything she needed for happiness, until he was drawn deeper into the city’s fascist movement and he began to lure her in with him. Meanwhile, Mary is pursuing an advanced degree in pharmaceutical research, striving to save lives. But her ambition forces her to live two hundred miles away from her husband, and both are miserable. The story is set in the years immediately preceding World War II. The two women struggle against vastly different challenges, but remain close.
A striking feature of Tonya Cam’s novel is the way it exposes trends that happened prior to World War II, and are happening again today. Tonya shows remarkable insight into how the desire to belong seduces and drives behaviours that may be out of character. In The Seduction of Belonging, we see Elena become a woman she barely recognizes, as lying gets easier and she finds herself compelled to turn away from the husband she loved.
As she did in Learning to Breathe Again, Tonya Cam provided detailed research notes at the end of The Seduction of Belonging, evidencing her skill and diligence in historical research, and the historical accuracy of her story. But Tonya is a science teacher, and she has also woven detailed and fascinating information about pharmaceutical research into her novels. This greatly enriches the stories, elevating them well above traditional historical novels.
Tonya Cam has promised a third novel to complete a trilogy about the delightful Mary and Elena, whom she has made so real that they have become valued friends. I can’t wait for the third novel in the series.
If you have noticed disturbing trends in society and politics that suggest that the need to belong is driving undesirable social trends, The Seduction of Belonging might prove enlightening. For anyone who loves truly great historical fiction, or just fabulous character-based stories by an amazingly talented author, The Seduction of Belonging is absolutely a 5+ star must read.