The Alice Network by Kate Quinn ***

The Alice Network by Kate Quinn tells the story of two women racked by guilt and self-loathing. Evelyn Gardiner was recruited to be a spy in 1915, where she was brutalized and tortured. She survived, but lived out her life with guilt, refusing the medals she was awarded. Charlotte St. Clair lost her brother to PTSD and suicide. She lost track of her cousin Rose who was in France. In 1947, Eve and Charlie band together to return to France to chase their respective demons. I did not feel that their redemption was a sufficient reward for all the brutality and evil they faced.

If you do not want to read an extended torture session, skip chapter 30. However, if you do not want to read about evil and brutality, you might skip the entire book.

The book alternated between Eve’s ordeal in 1915, and the two women traveling through France in 1947 driven by young Finn Kilgore in his Lagonda LG6, financed by Charlie hacking her grandmother’s pearls. The 1915 thread included the deprivations of war, psychological abuse, and torture. The pain in 1947 was mostly guilt.

Eve represented women who didn’t accept the sexism of 1915. “Eve thought. I don’t want a husband, I don’t want babies, I don’t want a parlor rug and a wedding band. … There was a war on; she wanted to fight.”

Charlie was a privileged teen who got pregnant in college. “He probably talked to the other boys in his fraternity, because I started getting dates all of a sudden. I went ahead and screwed them too.” She was also obsessed with her brother who committed suicide after returning from World War II, and her cousin Rose who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France. In 1947, Charlie was motivated by visions of her lost cousin Rose. “Because you followed a ghost all the way from Southampton, Rose whispered. Because you are a little bit crazy.”

The book contains many observations of sexism in 1915 and 1947, but the sexism has little relevance to the plot.

Charlie is good at math. “1947 was hell for any girl who would rather work calculus problems than read Vogue.” Finn called Charlie a “wee little adding machine.” This also had little relevance to the plot. Random mathematical metaphors were sprinkled throughout the book, as were random references to Charlie’s evolving pregnancy.

All the women were trapped by gender stereotypes.

In the author’s note, the reader learns that much of the book’s details are based on history. This research does not redeem the book.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Eve’s redemptions: Eve is abused and tortured as a spy and abandoned to spend her life with guilt and despair. She refused her medals, “The Médaille de Guerre, the Croix de Guerre with palm, the Croix de la Légion d’Honneur . . . the Order of the British Empire.” “Who cared about praise when the failures were so much bigger than the victories? That miracle chance in ’15 to kill the Kaiser—failed. Stopping the assault on Verdun—failed. Keeping the network together after Lili’s arrest—failed.” Eve’s redemption followed this pattern of insufficient victories. [She shot her torturer and learned that her guilt was based on lies.]

Charlie’s redemption: Charlie’s travels through France in 1947, accompanied by the troubled Eve, were a pleasant vacation compared to Eve’s 1915 ordeal. In the end, she released her obsessions, married Eve’s driver, Finn Kilgore, and kept the baby.

For no apparent reason, Eve became a big game hunter.

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