A powerful multigenerational saga from National Book Award finalist Martha McPhee that explores one family's story against the sweep of 20th-century American history.Drawn from the author's own family history, An Elegant Woman is a story of discovery and reinvention, following four generations of women in one American family. As Isadora, a novelist, and two of her sisters sift through the artifacts of their forebears' lives, trying to decide what to salvage and what to toss, the narrative shifts to a winter day in 1910 at a train station in Ohio. Two girls wait in the winter cold with their mother--the mercurial Glenna Stewart--to depart for a new life in the West. As Glenna campaigns in Montana for women's suffrage and teaches in one-room schoolhouses, Tommy takes care of her little sister, Katherine: trapping animals, begging, keeping house, cooking, while Katherine goes to school. When Katherine graduates, Tommy makes a decision that will change the course of both of their lives. A profound meditation on memory and history, An Elegant Woman illuminates complexities of class, race, love, and family, the sacrifices and compromises that go into making a life. An Elegant Woman, framed by Isadora's efforts to retell her grandmother's journey so she can interpret her own, is an evocative exploration of the stories we tell ourselves--and what we leave out.