“June sunshine poured over the street, the sounds of a jazz saxophone drifted over from next door, somewhere on Capitol Hill Senator McCarthy was waving lists of card-carrying American Commies, and a new guest had come to the Briarwood boardinghouse.”
That’s the opening sentence to chapter one of Kate Quinn’s historical novel The Briar Club. It takes place from 1950-1955 in Washington, D.C. in a boarding house of all women, each with her own story.
The new guest, Grace March, rents the attic room and slowly transforms the house full of women into a family. She starts by inviting everyone up to her room every Thursday for a communal dinner that becomes known as the Briar Club.
Author Quinn uses the women to highlight the social issues of the time. Nora who works for the National Archives falls in love with a mobster. Reka is a Jew who fled from Hitler’s Germany and lost family-owned art to the family that sponsored her. Fliss has a newborn that she struggles to raise as she waits for her husband to return from serving in the Korean War. Bea is struggling to make a new life after injuring herself playing in the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. Claire is struggling to keep her alternative lifestyle a secret especially while McCarthy is wreaking havoc in the country. And Grace…well…if I told you her backstory it would ruin the surprise ending.
Quinn says in her Notes that this book is her “post pandemic book, a novel that erupted out of a desperate need for light, for connection, for friendship.”
If you’re looking for a story that addresses the country’s issues in the 1950’s, then you must read The Briar Club by Kate Quinn.
