Canary Girls
A Novel
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4.5 • 30 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Rosie the Riveter meets A League of Their Own in New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini’s lively and illuminating novel of the British home front about the “munitionettes” who built bombs in Britain’s arsenals during World War I, risking their lives for the war effort and discovering camaraderie and courage on the football pitch.
Early in the Great War, men left Britain’s factories in droves to enlist. Struggling to keep up production, arsenals hired women to build the weapons the military urgently needed. “Be the Girl Behind the Man Behind the Gun,” the recruitment posters beckoned.
Thousands of women—cooks, maids, shopgirls, and housewives—answered their nation’s call. These “munitionettes,” vital arsenal workers, worked grueling shifts often seven days a week, handling TNT and other explosives with little protective gear.
Among them is nineteen-year-old former housemaid April Tipton. Impressed by her friend Marjorie’s descriptions of higher wages, plentiful meals, and comfortable lodgings, she takes a job at Thornshire Arsenal near London, filling shells in the Danger Building—difficult, dangerous, and absolutely essential work.
Joining them is Lucy Dempsey, wife of Daniel Dempsey, Olympic gold medalist and star forward of Tottenham Hotspur. With Daniel away serving in the famed Footballers’ Battalion, Lucy resolves to do her bit to hasten the end of the war. When her coworkers learn she is a footballer’s wife, they invite her to join the arsenal ladies’ football club, the Thornshire Canaries.
The Canaries soon acquire an unexpected fan in the boss’s wife, Helen Purcell, who is deeply troubled by reports that Danger Building workers suffer from serious, unexplained illnesses. One common symptom, the lurid yellow hue of their skin, earns them the nickname “canary girls.” Suspecting a connection between the canary girls’ maladies and the chemicals they handle, Helen joins the arsenal administration as their staunchest, though often unappreciated, advocate.
The football pitch is the one place where class distinctions and fears for their men fall away, and a powerful found family of teammates is forged. As the war grinds on and tragedy takes its toll, the Canary Girls persist despite the dangers, proud to serve, determined to outlive the war and rejoice in victory and peace.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Chiaverini (Resistance Women) adds to the glut of revisionist war stories featuring strong women characters with a serviceable if overlong tale focused on England during WWI, where women were encouraged to take jobs in industry and agriculture. Former suffragette Helen Purcell marries an industrialist who converts his family's sewing machine manufacturer into a munitions factory. Poor young April Tipton, tired of the grueling work of a housemaid, learns she can make a better wage in a factory. Lucy Dempsey's famous footballer husband is away with the English Footballers' Battalion. All three women converge at Purcell's arsenal, where April and Lucy work as "munitionettes" in the Danger Building filling fuse caps with yellow TNT powder. Soon, their skin turns yellow, earning them the nickname "canary girls" but also giving them chest pain, coughs, and vomiting. Helen, with her clout as the boss's wife, becomes the factory's welfare supervisor to monitor the girls' health. Meanwhile, Lucy helps organize a factory football team, a welcome distraction. Though Chiaverini takes too long establishing the characters, she succeeds at immersing readers in 1914 London, with convincing details of munitions manufacturing, stark class disparities, patriotic duty, and soccer matches. Those willing to go the distance will root for these indomitable women.
