This lovely book tells the story of Peggy Jones, a bookbinder at the Oxford University Press over 1914-1919. It is marketed as a companion volume to The Dictionary of Lost Words, Williams' highly successful debut novel. It helps to have read it, but it’s not essential to following the storyline. Peggy and her twin Maude work in the women’s section of book publishing, cutting the pages and binding the books. The snippets of the books that Peggy reads whet her appetite, and she collects the unwanted copies, storing them on their houseboat. She dreams of being able to learn more, and perhaps even being included among the gowns of the University, rather than being consigned to just a town girl. Many themes are interwoven throughout: the realities of war both in England and for the soldiers overseas, the plight of Belgian refugees who fled the German invasion, the burden of caring for family, suffragettes, and the impact of the Spanish flu. The overarching idea though, is the limitations on women at this time, especially those without means. It’s both uplifting and honest.
One comment stayed with me, in comparing the sacrifice of the men who died in war and the women who died nursing the sick with flu: “Every town will have a memorial for the men… But I don’t think there will be one for the women… Their sacrifice was not glorious or noble… It was women’s work and it was just expected.”
Anchored around the later years of Olive Kitteridge, her husband Henry, and their now adult son Christopher. A retired schoolteacher, Olive is not an easy woman, but she has a lot of love and care for others, in her own brusque and difficult way. It’s a meandering read with alternate chapters focussed on other people in their town whose lives intersect with Olive’s. Therefore, it’s almost a collection of short stories or vignettes. Initially, it made for confusing reading, but after a while, the pattern became clearer, and the book started to wash over me a little more. Strout has interesting insights into people and explores both the mundane and the more complicated aspects of life. I ended up quite enjoying it and turned with renewed interest towards the sequel, Olive, Again. This continued Olive’s life in her 70s and 80s. A similar format and some characters from the first book reappear. It dips in and out over time, and you suddenly realise 2, 3 or 5 years have passed by. There’s a frank honesty about the realities of ageing, losing loved ones, moving into residential care, and the many indignities of older life.
I have now read four of Quinn’s novels, all set in rural locations around Australia. Two were in outer NSW (The Vet from Snowy River, and A Home Among the Snow Gums, and two were in Queensland (A Town Like Clarence and Down the Track). She has engaging characters with interesting backstories. They are all romantic fiction, so it’s entirely obvious from the beginning who is going to pair up with whom, but they are also humorous, quite modern (in terms of up-to-date references) and a bit of fun. Enjoyable light reading from an Australian author.
