Review of A SINGLE THREAD by Tracy Chevalier

2.5 Stars

Living in Winchester in 1932, Violet Speedwell, 38, is a “surplus woman,” one of those women “left single as a result of [World War I] and unlikely to marry.”  She has recently moved from her family home and life with her constantly complaining mother to start an independent life.  Working as a typist for an insurance company provides her barely enough income to survive.  She joins a guild of women who embroider kneelers and cushions for Winchester Cathedral.  A friendship with Arthur Knight, a bell ringer at the cathedral, also brings joy into her life.

There is not much of a plot so the pace is very slow.  On the other hand, there is a great deal of focus on canvas embroidery and bell ringing.  I found my interest waning several times when there was an information dump on these topics. 

I had difficulty with the character of Jack Wells.  Why is he interested specifically in Violet?  She is not the only single woman in the area, yet he focuses on her.  Actually, the entire plot involving him seems unnecessary, unless it is to create some suspense in a novel sorely lacking in that regard.

The relationship between Arthur and Violet is also difficult to understand.  The first thing she notices about him is his eyes and that “He was much older than she, and – she automatically glanced – he wore a wedding ring.”  On their first meeting, why does she think that he is making a point to remember not to call her Vi especially when he pays her only “brief attention”?

Violet is not a particularly likeable character.  She lost her brother and fiancé during the war but that was 16 years earlier.  It took her that long to move away from her mother who has made her life so miserable?  She does become less of a shrinking violet and gains some confidence once she is on her own, but then she takes “Her act of rebellion” which she acknowledges is “making [her] life from the ruins of [another]”!  This is hardly admirable behaviour.  (And at the end of that act of rebellion, she listens to her inner body and imagines she feels a faint twinge so she concludes, “Now it begins . . . Now I begin”??!!)

I enjoyed Girl with a Pearl Earring and Remarkable Creatures by the same author, but this novel just fell flat for me.  What the book successfully emphasizes is the few options women had, especially single women who were “considered a tragedy, and a threat, in a society set up for marriage.”  I guess a dull book is one way of stressing the dullness of life for women such as Violet?