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A Novel
by Kate Quinn
Book Reviewed by:The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.
Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation's capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman's daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women's baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy's Red Scare.
Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?
Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.
Prologue
Thanksgiving 1954
Washington, D.C.
If these walls could talk. Well, they may not be talking, but they are certainly listening. And watching.
Briarwood House is as old as the century. The house has presided—brick-fronted, four-storied, slightly dilapidated—over the square below for fifty-four years. It's seen three wars, ten presidents, and countless tenants ... but until tonight, never a murder. Now its walls smell of turkey, pumpkin pie, and blood, and the house is shocked down to its foundations.
Also, just a little bit thrilled. This is the most excitement Briarwood House has had in decades.
Murder. Murder here in the heart of sleepy white-picket-fence Washington, D.C.! And on Thanksgiving, too. Not that the house is terribly surprised by that; it's held enough holidays to know that when you throw all that family together and mix with too much rum punch and buried resentment, blood is bound to be shed sometimes. But the scene that erupted tonight and splashed gore ...
Readers come away with a real feel for Washington, D.C. during a volatile era, and the book is consummate historical fiction. The author explores the major concerns of the day — actions of Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee, the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the Korean War — but goes beyond these topics to highlight lesser-known people and events. Fans of Quinn should know The Briar Club is a bit different from her previous novels in that it's much more character-driven. I couldn't put it down, but some more familiar with her oeuvre have mentioned it feels slow. The author's intent seems more geared toward creating fascinating characters and bringing the time to life than building a whodunnit...continued
Full Review
(695 words)
(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
One of the characters in Kate Quinn's The Briar Club played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL), which existed from 1943 to 1954.
In 1942, owners of professional baseball teams and stadiums were in a panic. Young men who played ball were being drafted to fight in World War II, and several minor league teams had collapsed as a result. Concerned that even the major leagues would be impacted, Chicago Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley (of chewing gum fame) formed a committee to brainstorm possible solutions to this potential lack of players. The committee recommended forming a women's softball league to fill the void, and the All-American Girls Softball League was born.
The committee faced some questions...
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