Book Review: A Woman's Place by Lynn Austin

On the day in 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, each of the four main characters in Lynn Austin’s A Woman’s Place is in the middle of her own personal crisis. A prologue sets the stage for each of them to come to work in the Stockton (Michigan) Shipyard. The book then takes us into the personal lives of these diverse women, and we follow them through the years of World War II as they do their bits for Uncle Sam while holding their lives together at home and adjusting to the social and personal changes that war brings.

The book’s strengths stems from its character studies, setting, and themes. In the character department, Austin throws together four very different women and in this way gives us a taste of four segments of the community. Virginia, a timid full-time wife and mother, doesn’t even have the nerve to tell her businessman husband she’s taken a job. Helen, a bitter old maid school teacher, takes extra pains to keep the walls of her heart up against invasion, even by her workmates. Rosa, a lusty new bride, has a terrible time adjusting to living with her straight-laced in-laws. And Jean, a bright and ambitious farm girl, can’t wait for the war to be over so she can go to college.

Following four characters simultaneously was no problem. Austin’s way of writing from only one character’s point of view per chapter and titling that chapter with the character’s name made it easy to track the four women and their individual story threads. By book’s end I felt each of the women had noticeably changed – something one expects to find in character-driven fiction. That aspect of the book helped to making the reading journey feel worthwhile to me.

I enjoyed the novel's historical perspective and setting – a wartime shipyard. Bits about life on the home front, like the pressure put on women to help in the war effort, the mixed welcome women receive in an up-'til-now male workplace, the rationing of gas, the excitement of mail and lots of other minutiae of the time were brought to life by the story’s events. In addition, Austin moves us along through the war years by prefacing some chapters with dates. She gives us a feel for what’s happening on the war front by including, in the dated chapters, headlines of the time.

Article Author: Violet Nesdoly

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