Prize Women
Who will be the lucky woman to win a millionaire’s fortune by having the most children in ten years? That was the challenge thrown down by real life Canadian lawyer Charles Vance Millar, who offered the money in his will for the Toronto woman who procreated most between 1926 and 1936. That’s the basis of Caroline Lea’s third novel, and she creates two strong female characters who get involved in what becomes known as the Great Stork Derby. Lily de Marco is an Italian immigrant who flees her violent husband and ends up in Toronto with her son. She becomes nanny to glamorous Mae Thebault, the rich wife of a factory owner, who needs help with her five children. The two become close, with a husband found for Lily, but then the Wall Street crash changes life dramatically for both women. They enter the Great Stork Derby, their lives put under public scrutiny. Both have secrets they don’t want revealed, but can silence prevail and friendship survive when they desperately need cash?
This is a lyrically written and poignant book, told from alternative points of view. While I was rooting for one woman more than the other, the characters are both well developed, and I had sympathy for both. The story highlights motherhood and control at a time when contraception and choosing when to have children was something women had great difficulty planning. This fulsome work has courtroom drama and emotive descriptions of hard lives amid the Canadian wild and developing cities, along with the love women have for children and each other.
