The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

 

Briarwood House is an all female boarding house in Washington D.C. in the 1950's.  It's pretty run down as the landlady doesn't believe in spending any money she absolutely doesn't have to, it's bad enough having to raise two kids on her own.  An interesting collection of women live there.

Nora works for the government in the documents division, preserving important documents such as the Constitution.  Fliss is an English woman whose doctor husband is still in Japan after the war working for the military after the war as Japan is rebuilt.  She has a baby and is overwhelmed with single motherhood while she waits for his return.  Reka is older, an artist in her seventies who fled to the United States from Hitler and his men.

Bea is a high school physical education teacher while she recuperates from the knee injury that ended her career in women's baseball.  Arlene is a secretary for the government as well and she dreams of catching a Communist spy and becoming famous.  Claire is a woman who grew up in poverty and will do any job to make money, saving for her own home one day.  

The women all lead separate lives, only speaking when they greet each other or when they argue about the shared bathroom.  Then Grace moves in.  Grace is a widow and she is friendlier than the rest.  She invites everyone to her room every Thursday for a shared dinner and slowly the group becomes friends.  They start to help each other and to help the two children raised by the landlady who only sees them as workers to make her money.  As the women become friends, they start to work together to make the house a home.

Kate Quinn is an American author who writes historical fiction.  This novel is based in Washington D.C. during the time of McCarthy and his witch-hunts in which he said he was discovering Communist spies but in reality he browbeat those who might have been liberal before WW II and joined progressive groups.  He delighted in making one person turn against others in their circle and those named were blacklisted in their professions.  The growing friendships among the women and their individual secrets are the basis of the novel.  Each woman gets her own chapter where the reader learns her backstory and her love life.  This novel is recommended for historical fiction readers.