Women of Glass and Steel

For Della (a.k.a. Delfina Pereira), Seneca Falls, New York, in 1916 offers only long days of work in the knitting mill and nights confined in a shabby flat with Mama, the town’s most outspoken suffragist. Della wants only to find love and escape Mama’s unpopular opinions and the foreign ways that make their immigrant family so different. An ugly duckling compared to her best friend, Netty, Della can only fantasize about a movie star romance. That is, until Netty falls for handsome Tommy O’Fallon and fixes her brother Carlo up with Della. But just as Della finds the love she craves, the United States enters World War I. When Carlo proposes to Della, she believes her fairytale ending has come—but Tommy does not propose to Netty before the boys leave for war. On the home front, dark realities force Della to choose between her friendship and her new understanding of herself. If she follows her convictions, is she doomed to a life as lonely as Mama’s?