Reply To: TBC: Kate Quinn says she “really wanted to look at a microcosm of the issues that are hitting women in the early 1950s.”
Some of the issues the women represent:
Sydney Sutherland–domestic abuse by her husband and father-in-law
Reka Muller–emigrant whose valuables were stolen by their sponsor and prejudice because she is an emigrant (not allowed to teach one of Bea’s home ec classes)
Grace March–espionage
Claude Cormier–racism because he is black
Claire Hallett–lesbian in love with Sydney Sutherland
Arlene Hupp–McCarthyism
Fliss (Felicity) Orton–societal expectations to be bubby and together to counter the perception of being cold and reserved because she is English
Bea Verretti–societal expectations that she should be more ladylike
Nora Walsh–upward mobility by being “the kind of person who only has to hear it once to learn.”
I think Reka Muller resonated with me the most because she deliberately made people dislike her so that she would be left alone. Reka’s accent made others think that she didn’t understand English and she was expected to be grateful for being in this country. “An old woman with an ugly coat the color of a dirty sidewalk and a carpet bag sitting on her feet like a tired dog. Sometimes people dropped coins at Reka’s feet, thinking she was a panhandler.” Reduced to poverty from her pre-immigration profession of art professor. Neither did her husband’s education as a journalist transfer to a similar job in the US; he was a janitor. Her thoughts of her husband Otto demonstrate how lonely she is. So, Reka went to the Sutherland residence get back the sketches that had been stolen from them, but is sent home without them and $50 in her pocket. Grace’s sign painting reveals Reka’s talent; their conversation and Fliss’ invitation to Christmas eve services helps Reka plan to steal back her paintings. She has empathy for the battered Mrs. Sutherland who gives Reka the paintings. Grace tells Reka to try happiness. In an effort to do that, she returns from New York with artist supplies and her husband in her head telling her that it is “better than cocooning yourself in blankets and old bitter memories.”
