It’s the year 1939, and
residents of the small, idyllic seaside village of Bexham are busy preparing for the
upcoming war. There are four young and beautiful Bexham girls, who belong to various
levels of society, but who’re all equally naïve and hoping against hope that war
doesn’t become a reality. Judy Melton, the daughter of an Admiral and very old money,
is very much in love with Walter Tate, and her parents are greatly opposed to this match.
Her beautiful, carefree friend, Meggie Gore-Steward is a social butterfly, who never seems
to take anything seriously, and who never realizes how much she loves her old friend
David, until it’s too late. Rusty Sykes, the tomboy daughter of a local boatyard
owner, is headstrong and restless at having to stay at home while her younger brother goes
off to fight in the war. Mattie Eastcott, from all outward appearances, is a very obedient
daughter, but whose escapades only grow more daring with time.
The youngsters, both boys and girls, who have no
experience of war, are both elated by it as well as dread it. But their parents and
elders, who’ve already been through one such war, know the dreadful carnage and
damage that war wroughts, not just property wise but also in people’s lives, hearts
and minds. As more and more men, young and old, go off to fight, the women are left
behind, to worry and try to do what they can do to help their men and their country. But
not every woman are not happy to just sit at home and knit socks and nets, while keeping
an anxious eye out for bombs and taking shelter at the sound of an air-raid siren.
They’re all determined in their own small way to do something worthwhile and make
something of themselves. They do in this in a variety of ways, and through happiness and
tragedy, births and deaths, they set out to change the world. Throughout it all, there is
a chestnut tree on the village green, which, as it keeps growing in these troubled times,
becomes a strong symbol for hope and goodness and becomes the guiding light in their
lives.
How women look at war, their fear, dread and
worry, how they face it and how they survive it, are heartbreakingly expressed in this
book, which is a powerful work by author Charlotte Bingham. Through specifically four
different young women, she shows how war effects every facet of society and what
catastrophe it brings in its wake. But it also depicts how such a tragedy converts these
hitherto pampered girls or homebodies or frivolous creatures into solid, dependable and
very brave women. The devastation that war generates is mildly depicted, with not much
explicitness to it. But, as the author expertly portrays, the battles women fight on the
home front are equally, if not more, important and life changing. This book shows a battle
now just between countries, but between changing ideologies and times, between old and
new, between men and women. Woman with her strength and her weakness, and her ultimate
capacity for sacrifice, is celebrated through this book. The characters are so lifelike
and the war atmosphere so chilling and real, as to be terrifying and very effective. The
book is hauntingly lifelike portrayal of women and their courage in adverse times. Bingham
makes this book a must read for every woman.
Reviewed By Rashmi Srinivas for The Road to
Romance
August 13, 2003 |
