Novels No. 91

 My poor local Branch of the TPL was locked down again for the third or fourth time, with no access to the holds we ordered. Not only does the branch suffer repeat issues with the building that houses it, it was long ago outgrown by neighbourhood density. We understand they have been looking for appropriate new space for some time. When they are able to re-open, it could mean half a dozen holds are waiting for me at the same time! Meanwhile, the in-house library does a yeoman job of producing decent substitutes. 

Kate Quinn. The Briar Club. USA: William Morrow/Harper Collins, 2024.

A fading old brownstone in Washington DC in 1950: owned and operated by grumpy, snoopy Mrs Nilsson, it’s a boarding house for women where Mrs N’s thirteen-year-old son Pete labours after school to her demands. When exuberant Grace March moves into attic room 4B, the strict atmosphere melts every Thursday because Mrs N leaves the house for her bridge game. Grace makes and shares food with all the inhabitants, at the same time opening Pete’s eyes to a world of more freedom. Musician Joe Reiss who plays nearby in the mafia-affiliated Amber Club, is rumoured to be Grace’s lover. Then there’s Nora in 4A who is ardently pursued and bewitched by Xavier, owner of the Amber Club—he ends up on trial for murder.

But with glimpses of the present, 1954, we know someone in the house has been murdered and police are interviewing all the residents. Over the preceding four years, Nora is not the only occupant playing with danger. Reka is an elderly Hungarian artist, planning to steal back the valuables looted from her by a duplicitous politician; Bea wants her place in men’s world of baseball, spurning her FBI suitor; Claire’s clandestine lover is married to a controlling, important public figure; Fliss is the epitome of serene motherhood with daughter Angela, awaiting her doctor husband’s return from military duty; Grace stays quiet about her background. Besides some stunning twists and the most amazing climax I’ve ever enjoyed, the reader is treated to a dozen of the inhabitants’ authentic recipes.

Quinn’s special strength is in lively female friendships and interactions; her research of the post-war, Cold War period is meticulous, as we expect of her. The paranoid effects of McCarthyism, rampant racism, and misogyny in halls of power surround the women even as they break rules and speak up. A killer of an ending.

Random tidbits

▪ “You really think the Russkies won’t invade? The Commies have been making preparations for years.” (25)

▪ “I said at least I wasn’t preaching the sacredness of life while shoving miscarriage tea down my daughter’s throat.” (99)

▪ Wasn’t being old hard enough without having to dredge up a saintly smile when Claire was a bitch and Fliss was annoying and Bea droned about the Red Sox? (124)

▪ “What would you say if I had killed someone?” Reka blurted, half horrified and half fascinated. (154)?

▪ How Grace never got caught was beyond her—two years at Briarwood House and she whisked men in and out past Mrs. Nilsson’s curfew like a sorceress. (167)

▪ She could just sit and know that her baby was all right, that the Briar Club women had closed around Angela in that blessedly breezy, automatic way they always did, passing her from one set of fresh arms to another while Fliss’s arms got a little bloody rest.(176)

▪ Harland was still holding her off her feet as Mickey Mantle took his home run lap and an entire stadium went insane. (243)

▪ “I am in love with a career criminal, and it’s been over for ages but I don’t seem able to entirely get past it,” she said, and hiccuped. (291)

▪ “No, what’s completely mad is staying with that man until he kills you,” Claire cried. “You have to get away.” (316-7)

▪ “She told me I should find someone else to keep my bed warm, too; she wouldn’t mind a bit!” (329)

Emily St. John Mandel. Last Night in Montreal. 2009. USA: Vintage Books, 2015.

Before Mandel produced her bestseller Station Eleven, came this slim novel about leaving. As in not staying. Eli loves Lilia madly, but his fear that she will leave him comes true. Abducted from her Quebec home by her father at the age of seven, her upbringing consisted of car travel across the United States from town to town to avoid police, a few weeks or months in each place, haphazard home-schooling by dad. Knowing they were hunted, Lilia left anguished notes in hotel room Bibles to say leave us alone. This transient lifestyle is imprinted to continue even after her dad settles down; she moves from place to place working menial jobs, sharing casual relationships, voraciously reading in several languages. Suitably, Eli is a linguist, perpetually ng his thesis about dead languages.

Montreal detective Christopher Graydon, whose daughter Michaela is the same age, is captivated by reported traces and sightings of the girl, dedicating himself to finding her. In time, a postcard from Michaela draws Eli to Montreal, renewing his hope of finding Lilia. Time and chronology are fluid with author Mandel, including her singular aura of surrealism. Teenaged Michaela had been left to fend for herself as her father’s compulsion kept him on the road, following signs of the fugitives. But she’s familiar with his notes of his journey. Eli and Michaela reach an impasse whereby neither is willing to trade secret information; reference to a cryptic accident is a mystery within a mystery. Does each have the answer the other needs? My patience was stretched a little thin waiting endlessly with Eli, night after night, to escort Michaela home from her grimy nightclub job.

Some of the surprise events made me wonder if the characters are all intentionally borderline mental. They have a lot to say about obsession, detachment, language articulation, and the nature of fight and flight. Unsettling, and unsettled.

Scraps

▪ “Try to imagine what it’s like,” she said. “I don’t know how to stay.” (33)

▪ “It’s a city with a probably doomed language. The Québécois are speaking French with an accent so ancient and frankly bizarre that French people from France can’t understand it.” (53)

▪ Stop looking for me. I’m not missing; I do not want to be found. I wish to remain vanishing. Lilia (54)

▪ Lilia said, floundering now, repeating herself, “I’m not arriving anywhere, I’m only leaving somewhere else.” (78)

▪ The time before she left her mother’s house was all closed doors and blind corners; her memories began the night her father appeared on the lawn below her window. (96)

▪ “Keep travelling,” her brother whispered. “You have to stay away, even if you’re in trouble, no matter where you are ...” (102)

▪ “The ironic thing is, I know everything about her life except the one thing that I really want to know. I even know the things she doesn’t.” (139)

▪ He had been travelling alone for thousands of miles, and the only thing he was at all certain of at that moment was that he didn’t want to catch them anymore. (175)

▪ “You’ve been chasing her since we were both eleven years old,” said Michaela relentlessly. She felt giddy and dangerous, slightly drunk, and she couldn’t stop talking although she knew she should. (186)