Is it insane for women to expect respect, dignity and equality in today’s world? After the failure of Roe vs. Wade, it is worrisome when a story set over a hundred years ago in New York sounds timely and relevant today even though it is said to be historical fiction. Whispering Women is set in 1913, which is 110 years ago addresses the women’s rights under attack today: abortion, contraception, equality in wages, the right to vote, etc in today’s USA.
The author uses the characters of Louisa Delafield and Ellen Malloy to tell a story of why women in the USA decided to seek these rights and what were the underlying causes to do so especially the right to vote and use contraception instead of dying an early death especially by women who were raped by men of high society. As I read the novel, I was reminded of HBO’s The Gilded Age.
Louisa belongs to the old money high society elite whose dead father has managed to destroy their inheritance. She is scraping by as a society column writer and is told to expand as the readers are bored with dresses, debutantes and designers. She decides to write a crime column. The other protagonist is Ellen, an Irish immigrant who works as a lady’s maid and witnesses her friend and fellow servant Silvia die due to an illegal abortion conducted by a high society doctor. Ellen manages to escape and this how Louisa and Ellen meet. While Louisa offers Ellen protection, Ellen collects information to help Louisa connect the dots in a police matron’s murder and thus solve the crime of her own friend’s murder.
Trish MacEnulty creates a rich world and interesting characters. Well researched, the writing style is crisp and easily moves from ballrooms to brothels with a pace that would make the readers glued to the book. The notion of capitalism and the use of gangs of New York makes one shudder with anger. But that is what it is all about, isn’t it? Certain things in particular are emphasized, especially how, even though Silvia’s pregnancy was forced upon her, she would have been the one punished for ending it and dies along with her immigrant dreams. The men face no consequences, even when it is them who are the cause of the problem. It is always about power, isn’t it? If you wish to read a book on white slavery, this would be it.
What Louisa writes about in her column are still issues which over a century later, still remain issues and such parallels show just how important these things are in society now and bursts our notions of women’s equality today as opposed to a barbaric, class filled past where women’s lives didn’t matter, especially those of women without money.
If you like historical fiction and mysteries, this is just the book for you.
You can buy it on Amazon.
