In 1915, Edna Ferber gave readers a woman who refused to fit the era's small box. Emma McChesney is a divorced mother who climbed from stenographer to business partner at a petticoat company in just twelve years. When her son Jock moves to Chicago with his new wife, Emma faces an empty house and a choice: wilt or conquer. She chooses conquest, diving headfirst into a whirlwind South American sales tour to prove she hasn't lost her touch. Back home, her business partner T.A. Buck Jr. is busy pretending to be 'a captain of finance when he feels like a Romeo,' and the two quietly navigate a romance that could upend their professional dynamic. The real tension: can a woman be brilliant in the boardroom and a wife without choosing one? Ferber's answer, delivered through sharp dialogue and Emma's relentless drive, still resonates. This is a book about reinvention before the word existed, about a woman who built herself into someone worth being.
