What The Lady Wants: A Novel Of Marshall Field and The Gilded Age – 420 pages
Book Blurb:
The night of the Great Fire, as seventeen-year-old Delia watches the flames rise and consume what was the pioneer town of Chicago, she can’t imagine how much her life, her city, and her whole world are about to change. Nor can she guess that the agent of that change will not simply be the fire, but more so the man she meets that night.…
Leading the way in rebuilding after the fire, Marshall Field reopens his well-known dry goods store and transforms it into something the world has never seen before: a glamorous palace of a department store. He and his powerhouse coterie—including Potter Palmer and George Pullman—usher in the age of robber barons, the American royalty of their generation.
But behind the opulence, their private lives are riddled with scandal and heartbreak. Delia and Marshall first turn to each other out of loneliness, but as their love deepens, they will stand together despite disgrace and ostracism, through an age of devastation and opportunity, when an adolescent Chicago is transformed into the gleaming White City of the Chicago’s World’s Fair of 1893.
My Review: 4 stars
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This is a riveting, fast paced look at Chicago during the Gilded Age and most specifically the life of Delia Caton, the illicit lover of Marshall Field. I’ve lived in Chicago for over 25 years and never quite realized the gravity and hold Marshall Field had over this city. He was a man to be reckoned with and truly was the Merchant Prince. I now can completely grasp why our city mourned when Macy’s bought out this beloved department store. Renee Rosen deftly wove Delia and Marshall’s story together while sharing the history of Chicago simultaneously. From the Great Fire, to the Haymarket Affair to the World’s Fair and the history of the Loop, we see how Chicago has suffered and rose victoriously…mirroring Delia Caton’s life and love for Marsh. Her name-dropping of people, brands, designers and places, all played a part in letting the reader’s imagination take flight. She also uses the fiction of historical fiction to speculate how this very public affair could happen in the eyes of the elite and more importantly their own family.
I highly recommend this book, especially for those who have any type of relationship to Chicago.
Quotes I liked:
Books had always been her companions, her escape. The pages she turned had taken her places and taught her to dream.”
-“Plus, he had enough faith in this customers to believe that women would come to shop no matter what the season.”
“She realized she’d never really been taken seriously—listened to—and by a man she respected to this extent.”
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