Readers who
enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato
Peel Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer or The Summer before the War by Helen Simonson should pick up this
novel.
Set in 5
months in 1940 in a small village in Kent, this book captures the war from the
perspective of those left on the home front.
After virtually all the men have left for the battlefields, a woman
decides to form a female-only singing ensemble.
Though some are initially scandalized, villagers gradually become more
accepting of the group whose goal is to use music to help people cope with
grief and loss. However, besides
providing emotional support, the choir ends up supporting the personal development
of its members.
This is an
epistolary novel. The letters and diary
entries of four major characters structure the narrative: Mrs. Tilling is a timid widow who spends her
time caring for others; Venetia Winthrop is a shallow flirt who sets out to
seduce a newcomer to town; 13-year-old Kitty Winthrop has a life full of
teenage melodrama; and Edwina Paltry is a greedy, conniving midwife. Occasionally, the writing of a minor
character is inserted: the diary of a
10-year-old Jewish evacuee; letters between a maid and the philanderer who
seduced her; a letter from the man billeted with Mrs. Tilling to his sister,
etc. The only problem with the epistles
is that they often quote entire conversations verbatim and this technique is
not very realistic.
The main
characters are well-developed; the letters and diaries reveal personality traits
as the writers share their interests, desires, and feelings. Several of the characters prove to be
dynamic. Venetia and Kitty both mature. Mrs. Tilling expands her world view and loses
her timidity: “she holds herself more
upright now, none of the slouching shoulders and moping face” as if “she’s
discovered there’s more inside her.”
The book focuses
on the effect of the war on women:
traditional norms were challenged.
Mrs. Tilling observes, “Perhaps there is something good that has come
from this war: everything has been
turned around, all the unfairness made grimly plain. It has given us everyday women a voice –
dared us to stand up for ourselves, and to stand up for others.” If there are real villains in the book, they
are two upper-class tyrants: the Brigadier
(“a bigwig, an overpowering presence, officious and rude and unlikable, yet
powerful and ruthless”) and the Viscount (“very proud and traditional”) who represent
the old patriarchy which fears the erosion of its power. Mrs. Tilling directly challenges both
men: “The malevolence and pride of these
people is ruthless, clinging to their advantage in the face of our total
annihilation.” She concludes that women
have let themselves be cowed by men too often:
“A sense of responsibility – or was it guilt? – hung over me, that I was
in some way at fault because of cowering to all these pompous men all these
years, when I should have had the bravery to reclaim my own mind. That if we women had done this years ago,
before the last war, before this one, we’d be in a very different world.”
Despite the
book’s serious events, when people deal with “overwhelming, inexorable,
deafening” loss, there are also touches of humour. Kitty, for instance, has misunderstood the
attentions of a young man and totally ignores information contrary to her
assumptions. When Silvie tries to tell
her that the man’s interest lays elsewhere, Kitty comments, “Sometimes Silvie
seems to completely understand what’s going on.” Mrs. B’s obtuseness and power manipulations also
provide comic relief.
This is one
of those charming, cozy reads that is so delightfully refreshing; it, like the
choir’s music, “takes us out of ourselves, away from our worries and tragedies.”
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