Everything about Andorra Kelsey is big, and her Depression-era story is no exception. At nearly eight feet tall, the woman known in Detroit as the Giant of Elsa Street, is looking for a way to escape when a Hollywood scout offers her a role in a picture. The movie is about Anna Swan, another giant from a generation earlier, whose stature gained her fame in P. T. Barnum's American Museum in New York. As the two stories unfold, numerous similarities surface in this witty and earnest work of historical fiction. While Andorra is an invented character, Swan was very real, born to a farming family in Nova Scotia in the mid-nineteenth century. Fishbane deftly draws out the difficulty these women face in finding the right fit, whether it's with a suitable suitor or a piece of furniture. Although their personalities seem cut from the same cloth, they are differentiated enough by their adventures through wars, disaster, and redemption. As it turns out, the biggest thing about these amazing women is their hearts. (Booklist Reviews)
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