The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
It’s 1919, the Great War is over, and everyone is expected to get back to their normal, meaning pre-war, lives. No one wants to see the maimed and the scarred, and women who went to work during the war are being pushed out of jobs that a new law requires be given to the returning men.
In this beautifully crafted examination of post-war cultural upheaval, Helen Simonson has given us everything we could look for in a novel of the human heart. Constance Haverhill managed a country estate, but has now been summarily dismissed. She has a tenuous position as summer companion to elderly Mrs. Fog at a seaside resort and no idea of what she will do next. Besides Constance, there is Poppy Wirrall, a wartime motorcycle despatch rider unwilling to be shoved back into the candy box; her brother Harris, a fighter pilot whose amputated leg everyone assumes will end his flying career; and Mrs. Fog, who proves to have a past she is willing to fight to reclaim. These characters and more interact with the guests at a seaside hotel and the scandalously oil-stained members of Poppy’s all-female motorcycle taxi service.
The Hazelbourne ladies are perched on the edge of great change, and the hard lines of class are shifting too. Simonson’s gift of characterization lies in her ability to show us the story behind the story in just a few deft strokes: even the unpleasant and vindictive have their reasons, and we know what they are and understand, even as we root for those with more heart.
The setting and time are impeccably researched, from wartime rationing to rising hemlines to flying a Sopwith Camel. Highly recommended.
