The Briar Club
Kate Quinn
5 stars
Format: Hardcover
Kate Quinn has another winning number on her hands. The Briar Club, her latest novel, takes the reader to 1950s Washington, D.C. and inside a women’s boardinghouse. Inside the house is an eclectic group of tenants, all with their own stories and secrets in a time of shifting culture. The story begins from the point of view of the house itself, “If these walls could talk,” and leads us straight to the aftermath of a murder. The police are here to get some answers, and so is the reader.
Kate Quinn’s masterful storytelling weaves the reader in and out of each tenant’s story and how each is impacted by the newcomer, Grace March. Grace brings warmth and friendship to Briarwood House, where the women were disjointed and unfriendly, and starts weekly dinners in her apartment. While there are a few too many characters to properly dissect in a short review, we get full, complex women who love and hate and steal and cheat and nurture. Of note is Fliss, an Englishwoman living with her toddler daughter at Briarwood House while her doctor husband is stationed in Korea. Fliss embodies a complete woman. She has dreams, but motherhood has drained all her energy for them. She keeps up a pristine facade all the while she is crumbling beneath the surface and struggles to care for her vivacious child. Any mother reading her chapter recognizes her strife, and Quinn doesn’t sugarcoat the effort. Instead, Fliss is helped by her chosen family and is able to come out of the darkness. It’s lovely.
A main backdrop to The Briar Club is Joseph McCarthy’s fervent hunt for Communists and the fear he instilled through his scare tactics and bullying. Americans were made to believe Communists were everywhere, infiltrating our communities, and, like Arlene, they drank the Kool-Aid with vigor. We see characters like Reka get terminated from her job simply for being accused of previously associating with the Communist Party in her home country. McCarthyism destroyed lives. Where there’s Joseph McCarthy, there’s Edward R. Murrow. His televised criticisms of McCarthy helped bring the bully to heel, which we witness in the novel. And as anyone who took Comm 101 at Washington State University knows, Edward R. Murrow is a national hero who single-handedly won WWII (per the professor).
Anyway, The Briar Club is as much a story about The Red Scare and American history as it is about the company you keep and the friendships you make in the journey of life. No one can help where they are born or born to (poor Pete and Lina), but we can make the lives around us better with just a little outreach. It’s when we stay siloed that life gets infinitely more difficult. No surprise that Quinn wrote this book during the pandemic. We were all going a little crazy for some community.
The story keeps pace, and while the character chapters are a bit long, I would argue that they give the reader a thorough look under the hood. I zoomed through these pages, wanting more and more of the characters. The ending did not feel rushed but rather, complete. The Rose Code Easter Eggs were an absolute treat, too! As everything came together in the end with dramatic flourish, I knew this was a book I could read again and gain more insight.
Finally, the Author’s Note at the book’s conclusion was great bonus material. I learned a little about the time period and that some of those outrageous scenes actually happened in real life. I’m looking at you, Lampasas, Texas. It’s amazing what this country gets away with.
