Her Brilliant Career by Rachel Cooke

A lovely evening, out in Cindy's productive garden, talking too loudly and probably disturbing the neighbours - Oh whoops we are the neighbours, that's ok then! 

The book is a short trot through the varied careers of 10 women of the 50's who managed by ambition, skill, chance, happen-chance and bravado to make a career for themselves in an era when having a career was unusual.  The women were as varied in career as they were personally, for a change the jobs they did were not the glamorous writers, actors and thinkers of the time, but gardener/plants-woman (Margery Fish), film producer (Betty Box), cookery writer (Patience Grey, more popular than Elizabeth Davis at the time), first woman judge (Rose Helibron), pilot and racing car driver (Sheila Van Damm) and her rotating partners Nancy Spain, journalist, Joan Werner Laurie founder of She magazine, archeologist (Jacqetta Hawkes) and last but definitely not least architect (Alison Smithson).  What we all noticed was in many cases the fact that children were definitely had but then quickly dispersed to boarding school, nanny or other carers ASAP.  The book was definitely a quick romp through their lives, although the notes were useful and informative.

With so many women we turned our discussion to their personalities and how they managed to achieve what they did.  Rose Helibron and Alison Smithson were interesting characters.  Alison in particular seems to have been a particularly determined and forthright person.  We discussed and compared the working lives of our mothers, most of whom HAD to give up work on marriage - and admired their determination in this era.  Our American member reflected on the difference between Britain still in the grip of austerity, rationing and belt tightening with the prosperity and burgeoning middle class life style in America at the time.

Words used to describe this book:  patchy, repetition, badly edited, waste of a good story, disheartening, interesting facts, doesn't do what it says on the tin

Marks out of 10:   between 5 & 8

Next Book

Grand Banks Cafe by Georges Simenon

(if you'd like to read the others by him Cindy suggested:  
Night of the Crossroad, The Yellow Dog)

Next Meeting

28th August at 115 Harbord St

Date for the diary

Juke Box Evening 13 August