November 4, 2013
Hope’s confident, well-crafted debut follows a trio of English women during the grim years after WWI, when no British family was left unscathed. Consequently, the novel is pervaded by a sense of absence and constant aching that underlies the women’s need to carry on. Ada, a grieving mother, is consumed by her son’s death; Hettie, a dance hall girl, waits resentfully for her shell-shocked brother to find a job; and Evelyn, a worker in a veterans’ relief office, takes pride in her ability to bury her emotional self, a quality which keeps her at her desk years after coworkers have quit. Each of the women’s lives is defined by loss, and as the book progresses, the stories of their dead and broken men begin to mesh. The overwhelming devastation of the war would be enough to justify the depressive grayness of the book, but Hope darkens the mood further by presenting a single tragedy from several perspectives. Though these characters may not be granted closure, they do get a chance at freedom.