Transcription by Kate Atkinson

As Kate Atkinson’s most recent novel, Transcription, opens we meet Juliet Armstrong in 1981, in London, where she has just been involved in a traffic accident. Lying on the pavement she thinks of her son, and Italy where she has lived for many years.

What follows is the story of Juliet’s past, especially the 1940’s when she was assigned a job, by the British government, typing the conversations of fascist sympathizers. A house has been set up where the government has installed a man who meets with people who are suspected to be spying for the Nazis.  He claims to be working on behalf of Germany, passing along their observations and activities to the Nazis when really all they tell him stays right there – with Juliet listening from another room, and transcribing their conversations.

When the war begins Juliet is a young and rather solitary girl. She is innocent in the ways of the world, taking her job at face value, without quite understanding that much of what she sees, and those with whom she works, is simply camouflage. As time goes on Juliet’s superiors see that she is indeed a smart young woman and they use her to infiltrate the social world of those they are interviewing. Though Juliet has come to know these people by listening to their conversations, they of course they have never actually seen Juliet at her work. She enters a tangled web of intrigue and deceit.

By 1950 Juliet is working for the BBC, and the Second World War is history. But, one day on her way to work Juliet sees a man she worked with during the war. He refuses to recognize her, but she is sure. She thinks of the past and what they did, together, during the war, knowing that none of them will ever be free of the past.

Kate Atkinson, author of Life After Life and God Of Ruins, as well as a mystery series, is known to be a bit of a quirky writer. Transcription is a bit more of a straightforward novel than her others, but still often darkly funny. As always, Kate Atkinson presents a novel that is entertaining and insightful, perfectly plotted and well written, with enough twists and turns to keep the reader wondering what really happened in the past, and if it will all be revealed in the end.

The Prisoner in the Castle by Susan Elia MacNeal & The Mechanical Devil by Kate Ellis

This week we have a couple of recent installments in long running and popular mystery series – one historical and one contemporary.

The Prisoner in the Castle is the eighth in the Maggie Hope Mystery series by Susan Elia MacNeal. And, once again, we learn about a fascinating aspect of the British war effort, and the experiences of some of those who worked in Special Operations for the British intelligence service.

There are many murder mystery novels set around the time of the Second World War, and it is always surprising that book after book more is revealed about the war and the experiences of those who lived at that time.

In this episode our heroine, Maggie Hope, has recently returned from France, traumatized after a very difficult assignment. Her superiors feel that Maggie is now too much of a risk to be sent on another mission – and rather than allow her to retire quietly, they have transferred her to a remote island where other at risk former spies are imprisoned. None of them are at all happy about being there and, in fact, it takes them a while to realize that this is not just a forced rest, but an imprisonment. Maggie is not the only one who still wishes to serve her country, and to find a way off the island.

There is soon a murder – then another, and then another. A severe storm hampers Maggie’s efforts to leave the island, and at the same time it is becoming increasingly difficult to know who to trust, while doing her best to keep herself alive. In the meantime, back in London, Maggie’s friends are concerned enough about her unexplained disappearance that they are working on finding out where she is – and why.

Doing a little research after reading this novel, I discovered that Arisaig House was commandeered by the British Government during the Second World War and was used as a training centre for SOE agents. In fact, many country houses were taken over by the government and used for the war effort. So, it is not improbable that there was a place much like the fictitious Killoch Castle on the Isle of Scarra. I believe that the very real Kinloch Castle on the Isle of Rum was used as the model for the prison where Susan Elia MacNeal has put Maggie Hope and several other risky – and eccentric – British spies. With a few locals thrown in to mix it up, and provide even more confusion, the result is a very suspenseful, intriguing and informative novel.

Also of note is The Mechanical Devil by Kate Ellis now out in paperback, the 23rd in the Wesley Peterson Murder Mystery series. We find Wesley slightly less worried about the health of his wife, Pam, who has now returned to work after a serious illness.

Work right now, for Wesley, involves two murders in close proximity to each other and, as it turns out, in much the same location as an earlier case. There is also the disappearance of a teenage girl, who may, or may not, have a connection to one of the murder victims. Then, there is the concern of a woman whose home was broken into 18 months earlier, who continues to call Wesley for reassurance that she is now truly safe.

Wesley’s friend, archaeologist Neil Watson is, as usual, also in the neighbourhood - literally digging around in the past. Of course, after much confusion, the case is solved, and we’ve spent an entertaining day or two with a favourite, entirely fictional, detective, in lovely, if dangerous, Dartmoor.

Learning to See by Elise Hooper

Learning to See – A Novel of Dorothea Lange, the Woman Who Revealed the Real America by Elise Hooper is a new novel about a female photographer whose images are some of the most iconic of the American Great Depression.

I knew the photographs, especially the portrait now known as Migrant Mother, but I new nothing about the woman who took the photographs that portray the desperate lives of those living in the Dust Bowl. What most shocked Dorothea Lange was that these people were Americans – not refugees from some other less affluent or war torn country. These people were Americans, leaving the east on their way west hoping to find employment in California – and finding life just as hard there as the place they’d left behind.

Dorothea Lange trained as a photographer in New York City before heading west herself in 1918, to San Francisco, looking for adventure and a clean break from her life in the east – and from her troubled past. In San Francisco she found acceptance as one of a group of artists and photographers; and with fierce determination to support herself as a successful photographer she set up a portrait studio. She also found love, with Maynard Dixon, already an established painter. But marriage between artists is sometimes a challenge – and always there is the struggle of the art or the marriage taking precedence. Maynard Dixon was used to living on his own terms, thinking nothing of going off on painting trips, for weeks or months at a time. They sometimes travelled together, but often Dorothea stayed at home, with the children. And, of course, infidelity does not help sustain a marriage.  

By the time of the Great Depression this marriage was in trouble. By now, a mature woman, it was time for Dorothea Lange to make some new choices. Though her business was successful, she had taken time away from the studio to raise her children and travel with her husband, and even her wealthy customers were tightening their belts.

The establishment of Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration – the FSA – gave Dorothea Lange the opportunity to do something meaningful and still be able to support her family. From 1935 to 1939 she travelled, taking photographs, and becoming more and more aware of the desperation of so many fellow Americans.  She was also becoming more and more aware of politics and the plight of the American people.

Dorothea Lange’s next major body of work focused on the internment of Japanese Americans after the bombing at Pearl Harbor. Most of the photographs she took in these years were impounded by the military – but now provide documentary evidence of this time and the people whose lives were so profoundly affected by their removal from their homes and imprisonment in isolated camps.

After the war Dorothea Lange continued to work, teaching and writing, and taking photographs. She remarried and raised her children and step-children. Recognized during her lifetime as an important photographer, Dorothea Lange’s work is still shown and admired today. And, thanks to Elise Hooper readers of historical fiction will learn more about this accomplished woman by reading Learning to See.

The Quintland Sisters by Shelley Wood

On 28 May 1934 the Dionne Quintuplets were born near Callendar, Ontario.

I grew up knowing this. These five little girls were part of the world I grew up in – certainly my mother, who remembers little about the present, clearly remembers the Dionne Quintuplets. The author of The Quintland Sisters, Shelly Wood, knew nothing about this story until she came across a photograph of the Quintuplets in 100 photographs That Changed Canada - published in 2009.

As my curmudgeonly husband often says, “It’s all new to the young people”. And, I expect there are a lot of young people who have never heard of the Dionne Quintuplets and know nothing of their story. So, good on Shelley Wood for writing this novel of historical fiction, with what seems to be a solid base in the truth of the time and situation.

I almost reluctantly picked up The Quintland Sisters and was surprised at how quickly I found myself involved in the story. I knew a bit about the childhood of these children but this novel fills in the blanks with very real people who are well characterized and, I believe, based on solid research. The majority of the “characters” are real people – I recognized the name of the photographer, Fred Davis, but my recollection was of seeing him on Front Page Challenge. My parents watched it every week, and yes it is the same Fred Davis, who long before his stint on Front Page Challenge was a photographer for the Toronto Star, and the only official photographer of these famous children.

It might seem hard, now, to believe that these children, and their family, lived they way they did. It was a different time, and it seems, at least in the beginning, that the efforts of Dr. Allan Dafoe were genuinely in the interests of keeping the babies alive. Theirs was the first known birth of quintuplets who lived. Born to a mother who already had five older children, into a family already living in poverty. The babies did live, all grew to adulthood and, in fact, two are still alive.

It is also hard to imagine that the children were so completely isolated, together, and became a sort of side show, with spectators coming from all over the world to see them. By 1937 there were sometimes 15,000 people on a weekend to see the Quints. Hollywood films were made about them. They were constant monitored by nurses and doctors. And, there was controversy about their father and his demands. Something I knew nothing about until I read this novel.

Shelley Wood has done an excellent job of portraying the world of the Dionne Quintuplets and has created a compelling fictional character who is dropped into the reality of those who were there, to provide another eye, another voice, another witness to what took place, and to what may, or may not, have taken place.

We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet

I picked up an advance copy the novel We Must Be Brave by Frances Liardet thinking I would be reading a simple book just to pass the time during a month of stress at the end of last year. What I got surprised me, as this book ended up being an absolutely riveting novel, one I found very moving and quite profound and heartbreaking.

“She was fast asleep on the backseat of the bus. Curled up, thumb in mouth. Four, maybe five yeas old.

I turned round. The last few passengers were shuffling away from me down the aisles to the doors. “Whose is this child?” I called.”

And the novel begins. In December 1940, Ellen Parr finds a small girl left on a bus in the village of Upton. The bus is full of evacuees who have come from Southampton. Everyone has disembarked and no one knows who the girl is. Ellen picks up the child and carries her to the town hall. When it is clear that there is no parent with this child Ellen and Selwyn take her to their home, where they are already giving shelter to three other evacuated children. Ellen discovers a label with the name Pamela Pickering sewn into the child’s clothing. Attempts are made to locate the parents, and it is discovered that the child’s mother was killed in the bombing and the whereabouts of her father is unknown.

Ellen Parr is now a lovely woman, but was once a girl who knew poverty and neglect. She has made a good life for herself, married to a man whom she loves and is loved in return. Children did not seem necessary. The evacuated children came but did not take root in Ellen’s heart as Pamela does. The love that grows between Ellen and Pamela is a wonderful thing and they are both made richer by it. They love each other, and need each other. Selwyn knows this is very likely to end in heartbreak but he cannot deny Ellen, and grows to love Pamela himself.

This is a novel rich in detail of time and place, wartime England and the years beyond. We learn about the earlier lives of both Ellen and Selwyn and come to understand the strength of their marriage. We meet Ellen’s childhood, and life long friend, Lucy. The other people in Ellen’s life are fully realized and we come to see Ellen as they do, as she sees herself, and as Pamela sees her. Pamela, with Ellen for the rest of the war, becomes the centre of her life – then and forever.

There were times I was reading through tears. We Must Be Brave is novel that I had expected to be simply another predictable wartime story but was so much more. This is a novel about caring friendship and loyalty, about love and marriage, about family. About loss, and about reconciliation, and if not peace, at least closure. It will be one of the best books you’ll read this year.