Roast Beef, Medium Book

Savvy, straight-talking, and self-reliant, Emma McChesney, is as witty and entertaining as the "fast-talking dames" found in old movies, but it's closer to 1910 than 1930 or 40. Emma's an early career woman, working as the Midwest sales representative for T.A. Buck's Featherloom skirts and petticoats, and most of her life is spent on the road--traveling by train, sleeping in hotels, meeting the most interesting people, and outsmarting the male sales reps who are her competition. She's still stylish and attractive enough to make a man hope, but as a hardworking divorced mother dependant on her income she's a stickler about her reputation.

Roast Beef Medium is the first of three books about the adventures of Emma McChesney. Edna Ferber, also the author of Giant and Show Boat, wrote the McChesney books long enough ago that they're all in the public domain and ebook copies of them can be downloaded from sites like Project Gutenberg. I listened to a wonderfully narrated Libravox recording, also free, which kept me grinning even when stuck in traffic.