Canary Girls by Jennifer Chiaverini
Most Americans have heard of Rosie the Riveter, the icon for women workers in U.S. factories during World War II. But have you ever heard of Canary Girls?
I never had! "Canary Girls" was a nickname for a particular group of munitionettes, which in turn was a name used for women who worked in British ammunition plants during World War I. Canary girls did some of the most dangerous work, filling bomb shells with explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT), which also turned their skin and hair yellow - hence the nickname. In some cases, though, canary girls suffered more serious health problems.
The story is told through three main narrators - April, a former housemaid; Lucy, wife of a soccer (British football) player and mother of two sons; and Helen, a second-generation German who is the wife of the manager of one of the munitions plants. April and Lucy are canary girls; Helen joins the plant administration to be their advocate. All three play for the plant's women's football team, trying to win the (real) Munitionettes' Cup. Other women working in the plant and playing on the team, as well as a few men (Lucy's and Helen's husbands, and one of the latter's assistants), round out the minor characters.
Author Jennifer Chiaverini herself described the book as "Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own" (the movie about women's professional baseball during World War II), and that's pretty accurate. Although I'm not a sports fan, I really enjoyed this story.
The Glovemaker by Ann Weisgarber
I met Ann Weisgarber at a Texas Library Association conference April 2015, where she spoke about how she worked with librarians and archivists at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston to research her first book, The Promise. I finally got around to reading The Glovemaker, and it's just as meticulously researched.
The book is set in winter, 1888, in the Mormon community of Junction in the canyonlands of Utah Territory. Junction is quite remote, and the small number of families that live there do so without all the strict rules of their faith. However, the two main characters - Deborah Tyler and Nels Anderson - as well as Deborah's husband and Nels' stepbrother, Samuel - do help polygamists trying to escape federal deputies. Adding tension to the story is that Samuel is overdue returning home from his travels to other Utah communities in his work as a wheelwright. Nels believes a rockslide on the mountainous road home has forced Samuel to take a longer route.
The book is set in winter, 1888, in the Mormon community of Junction in the canyonlands of Utah Territory. Junction is quite remote, and the small number of families that live there do so without all the strict rules of their faith. However, the two main characters - Deborah Tyler and Nels Anderson - as well as Deborah's husband and Nels' stepbrother, Samuel - do help polygamists trying to escape federal deputies. Adding tension to the story is that Samuel is overdue returning home from his travels to other Utah communities in his work as a wheelwright. Nels believes a rockslide on the mountainous road home has forced Samuel to take a longer route.
A polygamist comes to Deborah's door seeking aid, and Deborah feeds him and lets him sleep in her barn overnight, before sending him on to Nels, who will take him to a sanctuary. Later, despite the terrible weather, a man identifying himself as a marshal from Missouri - not a deputy from Utah - arrives at Deborah's home pursuing the man. Later, this marshal is seriously injured, and Deborah and Nels must make decisions that test their beliefs and futures. These tensions form the heart of the story.
Junction was a real place - later called Fruita (for all the orchards planted there by early settlers), and now part of Capitol Reef National Park. Weisgarber's visit there for a vacation inspired the book. She even made a research trip there in the winter, "so I could experience the climate and terrain as my characters do." Indeed, in reading her words, I could really feel the bitter cold as Deborah and Nels went about their daily chores, as well as the tasks made necessary by the visits of the two strangers.
I e-mailed Weisgarber and asked her what inspired her to make the character of Deborah a glovemaker. She responded, "Brigham Young encouraged LDS [Mormon] women to have occupations so they could support their families if their husbands died or were injured. I pondered this and decided that since Deborah’s father was a tanner, she had access to small scraps of hide. Gloves were essential not only because of the cold weather but to protect hands from blisters and cuts while driving horses, working with crops, gripping handles of plows, on and on. Hands also say much about us – our age, if we do labor, if our nails are dirty and ragged -- but gloves cover this information. For me, gloves were symbolic of the people in Junction not talking about the men who sought help. Gloves also represented all the secrets the church leaders kept about scandals." She did say that the book's title was not her choice - which I know is often the case in the publishing world.
Simon the Fiddler by Paulette Jiles
Simon Bouldin was a minor character in Paulette Jiles' earlier book, News of the World. Still set in Texas, this one takes place five years earlier, at the end of the Civil War. A fiddler from Kentucky, Simon is ultimately conscripted into the Confederate army and serves in its regimental band - and in a post-surrender battle near Brownsville.
Afterwards, he and other musicians are compelled to play at a party thrown by the battle's instigator, Union Colonel Webb. At the event, Simon sees Dorris Dillon, an Irish indentured servant serving as governess to Webb's daughter, and falls instantly in love. She has to go to San Antonio with Webb's family, and Simon eventually follows - but not until he travels to Galveston, Houston, and into the Nueces Strip (near Corpus Christi), along with some other memorable musicians.
Afterwards, he and other musicians are compelled to play at a party thrown by the battle's instigator, Union Colonel Webb. At the event, Simon sees Dorris Dillon, an Irish indentured servant serving as governess to Webb's daughter, and falls instantly in love. She has to go to San Antonio with Webb's family, and Simon eventually follows - but not until he travels to Galveston, Houston, and into the Nueces Strip (near Corpus Christi), along with some other memorable musicians.
I really enjoyed the characters and plot of this novel - but even more so, the portrayal of places I know so well (grew up in Houston, spent lots of time in nearby Galveston, lived in San Antonio and Corpus Christi) as they were after the Civil War.
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