Review of The Briar Club by Kate Quinn

New Kate Quinn just dropped? Um, yes please. The Briar Club is yet another historical installment in Quinn’s quest to tell the stories of women as they live through and participate in parts of history usually relegated to the heroics of men. In this novel—standalone from the others, though with some notable, subtle connections to reward her longstanding readers—Quinn weaves together the complicated narratives of six women living in a boardinghouse in Washington, D.C., at the height of the Korean War and the Red Scare. Accurately billed as a novel of female friendship, The Briar Club is so, so much more. It’s a testament to the narrative prowess of Quinn herself, as well as the diverse and sometimes erased lives of women of this era.

The Briar Club is told through a rather intriguing frame story. It’s Thanksgiving 1954, and Briarwood House itself comes alive and provides the third-person perspective as police arrive to take charge of a murder scene. After a quick scene in 1954, she whisks us back across the previous three years, starting with the arrival of Grace March at Briarwood House and the inception of the eponymous Thursday night dinner club. Grace’s subtle yet inexorable presence, kindness, and penchant for meddling upends the lives of the women (and young man, Pete) in Briarwood House. Each chapter, punctuated by the frame story, unspools the backstory of one of these intriguing women: Nora, courted by the scion of organized crime; Fliss, a young and exhausted mother separated from her husband by his Army service; Reka, a refugee who longs for the more sophisticated art world of her previous life; Bea, a baseball player reluctant to accept the end of her glory days; and Arlene, who has bought into the myth of the good housewife and the obedient, anti-Communist American.

The frame story is intriguing for two reasons. First, as mentioned, the house is ascribed a kind of sentience. I wasn’t expecting this from historical fiction; it’s a sentimental conceit that Quinn avoids taking too far. In the end, I was definitely on Briarwood House’s side.

The second reason the frame story matters is because of how Quinn conceals the identity of the murder victim (not to mention the murderer) for most of the book. Each brief chapter of the frame story reveals one or two salient details, while also revealing one or two other characters are still alive. You’re left wondering, “Is Bea the victim? Is Grace? Who’s dead?” It’s a really compelling mystery.

Each woman’s story is equally well told. As with any book with an ensemble cast, I always miss whoever was the previous centre of attention. Fortunately, Quinn manages to make each woman just so damn interesting. We often talk of there being no single experience of being a woman, and that is borne out here. These women are more or less feminist, more or less athletic, more or less queer. Some of the have lived long, embattled lives; others are younger, just embarking on the adventure of adulthood.

Quinn also captures the bite of fascism that crept into 1950s America through the advent of McCarthyism. From the respectability politics of Nora’s job to the ultimate secret of Grace’s past, fear of Communism permeated the working- and middle-class American experience.

But what confirms The Briar Club as one of my favourites of Quinn’s novels yet? Put simply, it’s the theme: kindness brings people together. Grace exemplifies this. Her well-meaning meddling, her kindness towards her fellow borders, Pete, Lina, and others, makes the world better. It’s an ideal I agreed with prior to reading (even though I’m not as extroverted as Grace and won’t be meddling in others’ lives any time soon). Reading this in 2024, as fascism rears its head again in the United States, I can’t help but feel … hope? Hope that as long as we find community in each other, we can get through the depredations of our day.