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Roast Beef, Medium

Edna Ferber

Book Overview: 

This book follows the adventures of Emma McChesney, a smart and savvy divorced mother who travels the Midwest as a sales representative for a large skirt and petticoat manufacturer. Her many adventures with people, (including predatory salesmen and hotel clerks), are funny and poignant. She is hardworking and able to outsell the slickest of the men salesmen. She has learned to focus on her work and her seventeen-year-old son, Jock. Experience has taught her that it is usually best to stick to roast beef, medium and not get stomach ache with fancy sauces and exotic dishes. This is the first of three volumes following the career and adventures of Emma McChesney.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .ute or two you could hear a faint rattle and click from the direction of the smoking compartment where three jewelry salesmen from Providence, Rhode Island, were indulging in their beloved, but dangerous diversion of dice throwing. Just across the aisle was a woman, with her daughter, Chicago-bound to buy a trousseau. They were typical, wealthy small-town women smartly garbed in a fashion not more than twenty minutes late. In the quieter moments of the trip Emma McChesney could hear the mother's high- pitched, East End Ladies' Reading Club voice saying:

"I'd have the velvet suit made fussy, with a real fancy waist to for afternoons. You can go anywhere in a handsome velvet three-piece suit."

The girl had smiled, dreamily, and gazed out of the car window. "I wonder," she said, "if there'll be a letter from George. He said he would sit right down and write."

In the safe seclusion of her high-backed chair Emm. . . Read More

Community Reviews

What a treat! I will be searching for more Edna Ferber's stories of Mrs. McChesney. What an amazing woman.
"When Emma McChesney aimed to get things out of the way she did not use a shovel; she used a road-drag."

A four-and-a-HALF-star road trip with 30-something divorced mother-of-one "Emma McChesney, Mrs. (I place it in the background because she generally did)" (Loc. 179), proud 10-year-road-vet representative of T.A. Buck's Featherloom Petticoats, "and her favorite pastime was studying men and women. The

I wish I could have given this one 3.5 stars, but it was a fun read overall, so I'll err on the side of generosity. Interesting to read these early "strong woman" stories that frequently walk a fine line between emerging feminist thought and adherence to (or perhaps nostalgia for) traditional male/f

So sad that I should be the first one to review this reprint of what was, in its day (1911), a very successful book, and justly so. Emma McChesney, a wise and feisty Yankee if there ever was one, is an immensely endearing heroine. Forced to earn a living after a bitter divorce, Emma has become a tra

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 petticoat

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