Give her credit The untold account of a women's bank that empowered a generation

This disappointing debut from journalist Williams details the 1976 founding of Women's Bank of Denver, which served women excluded from male-dominated financial institutions. In the early 1970s, Carol Green, who co-owned a Weight Watchers franchise with her husband, was frustrated by sexist businessmen sidelining her and decided to open a bank for women. Williams profiles the many women who incorporated the bank, but she focuses on Green and women's activist Bonnie Andrikopoulos. The latter argued that the bank should prioritize serving marginalized groups regardless of profitability, while the former wanted to attract a wider customer base to improve the bank's chances of financial success. (Green won out, thanks to legal minutiae.) Though Williams frustratingly omits information on her sources, the narrative appears to be reconstructed from the incorporators' meeting notes. This makes for a lopsided reading experience, with some chapters indulging in excessive detail (discussions on the importance of finding a location with parking and whether to renew a lease option, for example), while other developments seem to come out of nowhere, such as the incorporators' decision to hire Denver bank executive LaRae Orullian as the Women's Bank's first CEO. Further bogged down by hackneyed writing (the opening sentence reads, "A long, long time ago and once upon a time"), this is a missed opportunity. Agent: Jessica Regel, Helm Literary. (Jan.)

When a group of women took financial matters into their own hands. In the 1970s, American women had very little control over their financial lives. After marriage, they frequently needed their husbands to help them establish lines of credit, and before marriage and after divorce, they were often denied access to credit for things like mortgages and loans. Hoping to create a space "where everyone felt welcome," a group of women came together to open the Women's Bank of Denver. The members included Carol Green, who "had built a Weight Watchers empire" in the Denver region; Edna Mosley, a Black woman whose membership in the NAACP was informed by her own experiences with segregation; Wendy Davis, a councilmember who led a protest at the men's-only restaurant at the Brown Palace Hotel; and Beverly Martinez, whose experience as a television show host gave her an inside look into Denver's social issues. Together, the group faced ups and downs, including a delay on getting their charter approved and a rift that led to the resignation of some of the original committee members, including Green. In 1978, the bank finally opened under the leadership of LaRae Orullian, a Mormon banking whiz who'd been denied promotions at her former company and was happy to helm this new venture. The author's upbeat, conversational tone and clear affection for the focus of her work render this a fast-paced and riveting read, even if digressions into characters' backstories can at times take confusing twists and turns. A fascinating history of a feminist triumph. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.