Any story culminating in the fate of the World Trade Center in New York City already carries a pall of anxiety, but Joanna Scott focuses on the stories of women only peripherally connected yet forever affected by those towers.  The story bounces across decades, from the inception of the architecture to it final demise, with a stream of consciousness narrative that can be hard to follow.

Back in the nineteen fifties, women executives were rare and Lee, know as Mrs. J to her staff, is a formidable force in public relations for the Port Authority, selling the idea and managing the opposition of small businesses who will be displaced by the new two towers World Trade Center.  Other women include Maggie, an ambitious young assistant on Mrs. J’s staff and the story’s narrator; Pauline, whose perils never seem to end; and Kay, the erstwhile wife of the philandering manager of the aluminum plant supplying the materials for the project.  Their lives interconnect as they struggle to survive both professionally and personally.

Several story lines bind the streaming structure – a corpse appears in the woods, the aluminum plant poisons the adjacent farmland and water table, and the plant mysteriously explodes.  And, despite the intricate architecture of the narrative, following the lives of the women is satisfying.  Although their lives slowly build over the years, none are in the Trade Center on that fateful day.

Maggie’s voice sometimes sounds like a documentary, with a news broadcaster’s cold observations.  At times, Scott purposely drops in cryptic images that pop up again later in the book; more than once, I thought I should reread a section with the reference – if only I could find it.  At one point in the novel, Scott has one of her characters state: ” {she} compared the experience to rereading the kind of book in which the end invites you to go back to the beginning and read again, with new attention…” and I imagined she was reassuring me, the reader, when I found myself unbalanced and confused in the miasma of the images floating back and forth from decade to decade.

Reading Careers for Women is a complicated venture, but worthwhile.

Related Review: Joanna Scott’s DePotter’s Grand Tour