She’s ready for a vacation at her happy place-the Maine cottage she and her friends visit every summer. So they keep it a secret from their friends and families-in fact, Harriet barely even admits it to herself, focusing instead on her grueling hours as a surgical resident. They’ve been part of the same boisterous friend group since college, and they know that their breakup will devastate the others and make things more than a little awkward. Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple-until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand.
While a bit overlong and fraught with extraneous day-to-day minutiae, Chiaverini’s story will strike a chord with history buffs, and many will be surprised that such an essential crew of soldiers went virtually unrecognized after the war.Īn eye-opening and detailed novel about remarkable female soldiers.Įxes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation. These three women, along with their fellow “switchboard soldiers,” embark on a harrowing journey to France in wartime, experiencing the dangers of U-boats, outbreaks of the Spanish flu, and sexism: “You’re a fine soldier, for a girl.” Chiaverini weaves the intersecting threads of these brave women’s lives together, highlighting their deep sense of pride and duty: “I might have said something about wanting to slap the kaiser,” says one operator named Cora, “and since the army wouldn’t let me carry a rifle, I’d fight the Germans with the telephone.” Grace, Marie, and Valerie are strong characters, and their tender romantic relationships fit neatly among details of their war efforts.
French singer Marie Miossec has only been in America for two years because of her father’s transfer to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and she dashes a career in opera in order to aid the two countries she calls home. Valerie DeSmedt, a Los Angeles resident, hopes to honor her hometown of Brussels, which recently bore the kaiser’s devastating onslaught. It was no secret that the most talented telephone operators at the time were female-the job required nimbleness, steady nerves, and a “smile in her voice"-and who better to translate French and English phone commands than American “hello girls”? New Jersey resident Grace Banker feels called to enlist on account of her French studies at Barnard, and her strong sense of patriotic duty soon promotes her to chief operator of the Signal Corps’ First Unit to France. John Pershing’s 1918 call to arms for the “young women of America” to enroll in the American Expeditionary Forces in France. A historical tale focuses on three women whose key roles as telephone operators helped lead the Allies to victory in World War I.Ĭhiaverini’s latest opens with Gen.
0 kommentar(er)
