Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse

Last fall, I got hooked on the BBC/PBS series Call the Midwife, which is based on a series of memoirs by Jennifer Worth (formerly Jenny Lee) of the same name. In December, I reviewed the first book (titled simply Call the Midwife). A few weeks ago, after discovering I would be something like number 57 or 58 on the library's waitlist, I broke down and bought a copy of volume two, Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse. This volume, which is written in the same clear prose that manages to be both lively and nostalgic as the first book, focuses on Jenny's work as a district nurse, as opposed to focusing on her work as a midwife.

In this volume, the reader encounters siblings Peggy and Frank as well as the old soldier Joe and the painfully shy Jane, a nursing assistant-type character introduced in season two. The story of Sister Monica Joan's light fingers and inheritance of jewels is also revealed. Since Jennifer makes clear in book one that she did not see Jimmy for decades after they parted, it's not surprising that he had nothing to do with helping prove she had not stolen the jewelry, but otherwise I was impressed with how closely the show hewed to the book (and I should say this is the case for almost all episodes and characters, with the notable exception of Jimmy).

As the title implies, the common theme running through the lives of the characters in volume two is the scars left by the workhouse, whether having spent time in one or simply harboring the fear of ending up in one. As in the first volume, Worth captures the speech patterns of her patients perfectly; their Cockney accents dance across the chapters and into the readers ears with an ease that belies the difficulty Worth described of trying to put the dialect into writing.

In addition to the next episodes of Call the Midwife, I'm also looking forward to reading the third (and final) volume of memoirs, Farewell to the East End.

P.S. Given that the three books were originally published in England in a single volume, I think anyone doing, say, a 400+ page challenge this year could read all three together, if she were interested, and not be cheating on the challenge. Individually each book runs to about 300 pages. 

Debs at War

Debs at War by Anne de Courcy could perhaps just as easily be titled Downton Abbey: The World War II Years. It reads like an anthropology text (and given that the only library copies I could find in the entire state were at large universities, it likely is), but is a fascinating account of the work the young women of the aristocracy (formerly debutantes, or debs, in the pre-war years) did during the war. There is nursing, of course, but the range of jobs these women held is incredibly varied from assembling aircraft in factories to running homes for evacuated children to breaking German codes in the deepest secrecy. Many, like the future Queen Elizabeth, drove and maintained ambulances and other critical motor vehicles. (Princess Diana's aunt, Lady Anne Spencer, worked for the navy, plotting convoys of ships.)

Debs at War also provides a stark look at war life across Great Britain: the rations, the air raids, the daily grind of relentless war. Although in style it's much more academic than many non-fiction books that detail episodes from the same era (for example Operation Mincemeat or Lost in Shangri-La), it is still well worth reading for anyone with even a passing interest in World War II, and doubly so if that interest extends to how all the Lady Sybils reacted a generation after Sybil Crawley.

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

Elizabeth Keckley was fashion designer to the stars, back when the stars were Varina Davis (that's Mrs. Jefferson Davis to you) and Mary Todd Lincoln (a lady who needs no further introduction). She designed and sewed every stitch of their wardrobes - and those of many other leading ladies, as well - becoming their friend and confidante along the way. She nursed the Lincoln boys when they were in poor health, and Abraham Lincoln addressed her by name. Eventually, short on cash and with a misplaced devotion to her dearest patron, Mrs. Lincoln, she wrote a memoir, Behind the Scenes. All of this, after she spent the first thirty-odd years of her life as a slave.

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, by Jennifer Chiaverini, is the fictional telling of Mrs. Keckley's life, focused especially on her years inside the Lincoln White House. Elizabeth Keckley is fascinating to read about and Chiaverini paints a vivid portrait of the relationship between the loyal Keckley and the unstable Mrs. Lincoln. For reasons that I can't place my finger on, though, I didn't love this book. The historical research is outstanding - the recounting of the raid on Alexandria echoes the story as it's told in 1861: The Civil War Awakening as do numerous other passages - but there was just something intangible missing. Normally, I give stars (if I'm inclined to give any formal rating at all), but I feel a grade is more fitting today, and the grade I'd give this book is a B-.

A Man in Uniform

I have no idea where A Man in Uniform came from. I found it in my nightstand recently (has it been there for years?) and it sounded interesting. It's historical fiction, which you may have gathered from my last post that I'm more inclined to like than regular fiction, so I figured it was about time to actually read it.

The plot centers around the Dreyfus Affair (Wikipedia has a nice little synopsis of it), which is known as much today, at least in the U.S., for being the impetus for Emile Zola's famous J'accuse as for anything else. The idea is a mysterious woman comes to a relatively small-time lawyer whose family has extensive military connections, pleads that Dreyfus is innocent and charges him with not only gaining an appeal for Dreyfus, but with finding the real spy. Honestly, the lengths to which the lawyer, Dubon, goes seem rather improbable at times, but this is a fast-moving, well-written mystery that is as much about Parisian society at the turn of the 20th century as anything else. Kate Taylor's writing is a pleasure to read and her plot twists and turns through the final pages. I would classify it as a "beach read" and recommend it to anyone who enjoys historical fiction, and especially, a good mystery.

Last Night at Chateau Marmont

If you read my blog more than once a year, you've probably noticed that I primarily read non-fiction. I'm not sure when or how that happened, but I have no problem embracing my inner nerd and proclaiming that I really love non-fiction. Moreover, when I do read works of fiction, I've noticed that more often than not, those books fall into the historical fiction category (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Doc, Alice I Have Been, you get the idea). But a few years ago I read The Devil Wears Prada and thoroughly enjoyed it so when I saw a new Lauren Weisberger title in a bookstore recently, I decided to pick it up.

I didn't like it. In fact, I didn't finish it. This is entirely my fault. If I had bothered to flip it over and read even a smattering of the reviews (i.e., "Pure gossipy pleasure." - Chicago Sun-Times or "Weisberger has a laser focus on the world of the super-cool Manhattan young..." - The Times of London), I would have known this book was not for me. I am not the super-cool. I don't care about the super-cool. And I am especially disinterested in reading about (fictitious) people's (fictitious) Facebook posts. When I think about it, it makes sense that I liked Devil but not so much Last Night - Devil was largely non-fiction. Plus it was funny. Very, very funny.

The long and the short is that I can neither recommend nor not recommend this book. It has characters, it has plot (after years of playing divey bars in New York, a musician finally makes it big, turning his world - and that of his supportive wife - completely on its head), and its well written. If celebrity sightings and Facebook updates are your idea of summer escapism, read away. Me? I'll take those non-fiction tomes any day. 

Mrs. Kennedy and Me

A friend recently told me she read a biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis which left her conflicted: in awe of the life she led and what she managed to accomplish, but also put out with the manipulative, prima donna that she so often seemed to be. My friend couldn't particularly recommend the book she'd read - it was poorly organized and focused a little too heavily on JFK's many affairs for her taste. Our conversation was still on my mind when I had a few hours to kill in an airport recently and so undertook a pretty intensive browsing of the bookstore. Mrs. Kennedy and Me by Secret Service agent Clint Hill jumped out at me and I figured: why not?

It's a relatively short book, with a casual, conversational style, and plenty of photographs throughout. We meet Mrs. Kennedy - and Mr. Hill - in November 1960, just after the election and before the birth of JFK, Jr. In the course of the book, the reader travels with Mrs. Kennedy and the ever-present Mr. Hill from Pakistan to Greece and Italy to Morocco. The travels, the descriptions of these exotic lands circa 1960, are a high point, along with the visits to the various Kennedy homes and the even grander Newport pile where Jackie Kennedy grew up. My only real complaint with the book came at the end, in the chapter about the trip to Texas, where the reader is treated to - or bored with - seemingly every word spoken from the time the presidential party left for San Antonio until the hours after JFK's assassination.

As for the protagonists, I have to say that I concur with my friend's opinion of Jackie Kennedy. In fact, the more I read of the book, the less I liked her. From the beginning of JFK's presidency, she was determined, essentially, that she would not be the first lady. She regularly would agree to host or attend an event in her official capacity and then back-out, to the point that the social secretary did eventually resign. She made no bones about hating the White House and spending as little time there as possible. I couldn't help but think it was no wonder JFK was having all those affairs since he never even saw his wife. (Which isn't to say that perhaps the reason she didn't want to be at the White House is because she knew what was going on.)

In any case, the portrait of Jackie Kennedy that emerges is not an especially pretty one - and JFK doesn't come off all that well, either. The longer I read, the sorrier I felt for the agent, Mr. Hill, who was clearly wrapped around her finger and dedicated to his Mrs. Kennedy to the point of rarely seeing his own family. Did she lead a fascinating life? Absolutely. Would I want to have dinner with her? Probably not.