Millie, however, seems directionless and confused.
The pattern continues as the girls mature: Ruth’s academic achievements are discounted, her perfectionism is taken for granted, and her dates are diverted by her sister. In their 1930s Brooklyn Jewish household, youngest daughter Millie, with her red hair and blue eyes, is compared and judged superior to firstborn Ruth, whose appearance, though not described beyond “straight hair” and “brown eyes,” does not measure up. 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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