Alex Cohen is a 26-year-old American, primed to take over his father’s shoe factory in China.  He falls in love with Ivy, a seamstress in the factory, who is working to unionize the plant.  The conditions there are horrific, and Alex, thanks to Ivy’s prodding, is beginning to notice.  He finds himself pulled in several directions.  The union organizers want his help in allowing a strike; the mayor wants him to rat out the union organizers; his friend Bernie wants Alex to join him in creating a new brand of shoe, using Alex’s factory; and Alex’s father stubbornly wants to retain the status quo, including kickbacks to corrupt officials. When a despondent worker commits suicide, Alex starts to lean in the direction of change, knowing that sparring with his father is going to require him to summon courage that he has never displayed in the past.  Despite the weighty subject matter, the author keeps the tone light, especially in the dialog between Alex, who has a knack for design, and his father, who refuses to initiate change but may, in fact, embrace it if it helps his bottom line.  One particularly funny scene plays out near the beginning when Alex replaces their usual 60-year-old size 6 foot model with the beautiful Ivy.  This book made me wonder which of my shoes were manufactured in China, and my guess is that all of them were, or at least, in Asia.  The Cohens are not directly involved in the production of leather, but that work is even more disturbing, if that’s possible.  Synthetic shoes are looking better and better, but the factories probably still reek of glue and dye.