It can’t be easy to publish a novel about World War II. The field is flooded — there are almost five hundred in Goodreads’ “Best WWII Historical Fiction,” not to mention the eighteen hundred in the more general “Best War Novels” category. Many of the themes that pop up in war novels, like widowhood, wartime romance, and newfound independence appear in Elizabeth Brooks’ forthcoming novel, The Woman in the Sable Coat, too, but Brooks’ attention to detail and her indulgence in juicy, shocking twists, sets this novel apart.
After an intriguing prologue set on a ship, the novel opens with teenaged Nina Woodrow creating her own fun in a boring English village by inviting a neighborhood couple, Guy and Kate, and their charming friend, to a spontaneous dinner. The dinner is a failure — the two male guests get drunk and offend Nina’s reserved father — but like a drop of food coloring in a cup of water, the evening spreads to stain all of their lives. The young men go enthusiastically to fight, Nina volunteers in the war effort at home, and Kate grows curious about Nina’s father. When, in the final pages, we learn the truth about some of the secrets Brooks sprinkles through the story, we’re as surprised and satisfied as if this were not an intricately plotted and set World War II novel, but an old-fashioned murder mystery.
Brooks has a deep understanding for the time period and is careful with details, so that the worlds of the idyllic pre-war village, the drafty temporary housing of the British Royal Air Force, and, later, a bitterly cold farm in Canada, are sharply rendered.
Even if your pile of World War II novels is so tall it threatens to topple, you won’t regret adding The Women in the Sable Coat to the top.
- Tin House (2024)