HENRIETTA’S WAR

The more books from the Bloomsbury Group I read (this was the second, following The Brontes Went to Woolworths), the more I’m convinced that someone has created a publishing imprint just for me. How thoughtful! So far, I haven’t read an obscure early-twentieth-century cozy-genteel comedy (for lack of a better way to describe this genre) that I haven’t liked. This one, by Joyce Dennys, is an epistolary novel (I’m guessing semiautobiographical, since Henrietta, like Dennys, is a middle-aged doctor’s wife and an artist), originally published as a series of magazine articles during World War II, that humorously chronicles life on the home front. In letters to her childhood friend Robert, who is fighting in France, Henrietta details her own adventures and the shenanigans of the eccentric (of course) inhabitants of her small seaside town as they cope with blackouts, air-raid drills, rationing, donating blood, victory gardens, and scrap metal drives. Although the specters of war, uncertainty, and deprivation loom dimly in the background (the purpose of the letters is to entertain Robert and distract him from the war, but you can tell that Henrietta worries for him, as well as for her grown son and daughter, who have enlisted as a soldier and a nurse, respectively), Henrietta maintains her good cheer and self-deprecating wit, and I found the famous British endurance in the face of adversity as comforting as its original wartime readers no doubt did. This is a light read, but I highly recommend it for fans of the era or anyone who enjoys simple, warm, and often hilarious tales of daily life. (Something about the tone, combined with the letter format and the accompanying line drawings, actually reminded me of Jean Webster’s Daddy Long Legs, which in case you don’t know is high praise indeed.)

This book covers 1939 to 1942; I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of the sequel, Henrietta Sees It Through, as it wings its way to my door from Amazon.