Nora Becker has the opportunity of a lifetime: to play for the Red Heads, a women’s traveling basketball team, during the Great Depression. She accepts the paid position, leaving her little sister behind in Oregon. Nora revels in playing basketball at such a high level, and she uses her exceptional defensive skills to stop star opponents while her teammates help her improve her dribbling. She also loves exploring the diverse landscapes across the United States: she steals the team car to visit a teammate’s family in West Virginia; she walks all night with another teammate along a reservoir in Maryland; she admires the art, lights, and ice skaters during her first visit to New York City; she leads a canoe expedition on Lake Coeur d'Alene.
But her new life isn’t only playing basketball during the day and drinking and dancing with friends in the evenings. She soon learns that male opponents and spectators often expect entertainment more than athleticism, and she bears witness to destitution in both rural areas and cities. And when her sister begs her to come home for good, Nora must reconcile her loyalty and love to her family and her newfound basketball community.
The Red Heads is a novel about the dreams that women pursue and at what cost and the relationships that bind them together and help them along. It is a story of how what we now call feminism has always existed, and how all women—not only basketball players—owe a debt of gratitude to women throughout history who made difficult choices to live their lives differently.