GRACE OF THE EMPIRE STATE

A young woman must work a dangerous job to save her family during the Great Depression.

In June of 1930, former circus performer Grace O’Connell is lucky to have a job she loves, dancing for a show in Times Square. And while she’s grieving the untimely death of her father, her family is also lucky that her twin brother, Patrick, works as a riveter on the Empire State Building. Still, they live in precarity. Their mother refuses to send their younger sibling, Connie, to the doctor for fear of the cost, though the girl suffers from a chronic lung infection. When the club Grace dances for closes suddenly, it’s bad. But much worse occurs two days later when Patrick loses his footing at work, catching himself from plummeting to his death, but breaking an arm in the process. He can’t work with a broken arm, and since riveters work in teams, three other men are out of jobs as well—unless Grace disguises herself as Patrick and takes his place. Tizzard does a marvelous job bringing Depression-era New York City to the page. Along with immersive descriptions of nightlife and family life, she deftly illustrates the desperation of the times and the abject lack of social safety nets. No one wants Grace to go “up on the steel”—the risk of discovery is almost as dire as the risk of death or injury. And the building gets higher every day. But the job is the only thing that stands between this family and homelessness. Several subplots come to a head around the climax of the book, and having them compressed in such a way tips things toward melodrama. But Grace is a believably complex and good-hearted heroine, and Tizzard’s construction scenes are dizzyingly clear.

A vibrant and heart-stopping novel.