Love of Finished Years

Phillips’s beguiling novel follows a young German immigrant woman weathering the dangers of factory work in pre-WWI America. Elsa Schuller lives with her mother and sister in New York’s Lower East Side and works in a shirtwaist factory to help support her family. After a horrific fire results in the death of many factory workers and forces the factory to close, Elsa finds employment as a maid and German translator in the Long Island home of the Graham family. Elsa is also a companion to the Grahams’ spoiled daughter, Dafne, their friendship crossing a social divide. When Dafne becomes engaged to handsome neighbor Glenn Streppy, she moves to New York City with Elsa so that she can be closer to Glenn, who has joined the Army and trains in Brooklyn. Yet Glenn’s devotion to Army life and Dafne’s desire to immerse herself in New York’s social scene causes a deep fracture in their romance, eventually causing Elsa to find new employment. Phillips’s portrayal of the gritty reality of early-20th-century immigrant life has impressive scope, eventually weaving in the devastating effects of World War I on the characters. Readers will be satisfied by this novel’s fast-paced plotting and its memorable characters. (BookLife)