Book reviews archive

Black History, Music

My Black Country

Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter, has sparked a sometimes contentious debate about the nature and identity of country music. It’s an invigorating topic that has long been explored by writers and scholars. A number of excellent books, such as Charles L. Hughes’ Country Soul, Francesca Royster’s Black Country Music and Daphne Brooks’ Liner Notes for the Revolution, have contributed deeply to the conversation about race and country music. Now, acclaimed songwriter, producer and novelist Alice Randall (Black Bottom Saints, The Wind Done Gone) provides a detailed and far-reaching account in her mesmerizing My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music’s Black Past, Present, and Future.

Part autobiography and part music history, Randall’s sprawling yet tightly controlled text uncovers the roots of Black country and reveals its future in the work of contemporary country artists such as Miko Marks, Rissi Palmer, Rhiannon Giddens, Mickey Guyton and Allison Russell. Randall reveals that Black country was born on December 10, 1927, when banjoist DeFord Bailey played “Pan American Blues” on “Barn Dance,” a radio show out of Nashville, Tennessee; Bailey became the first superstar of the Grand Ole Opry. In addition, as Randall points out, other Black performers stood at the forefront of country music. The eight-fingered Lesley Riddle, who created a new three-fingered picking technique for playing the guitar, taught songs to the folk group the Carter Family, and pianist Lil Hardin, who would marry Louis Armstrong, was the first Black woman to play on a hillbilly record—Jimmie Rodgers’ Blue Yodel No. 9, also known as Standin’ on the Corner.

In Randall’s brilliant genealogy of country music, “DeFord Bailey is the papa, Lil Hardin Armstrong is the mama, Ray Charles is their genius child, Charley Pride is DeFord’s side child, and Herb Jeffries is Lil’s stepson.” As Randall reiterates, “Black Country is a big tent with many entry points.” For example, Aretha Franklin and Tina Turner can be considered Black country because their songs meet some criteria on the generally accepted country checklist: influences of Evangelical Christianity, African music and English, Irish or Scottish ballad forms; “concerns with female legacy”; offering advice, using “banjo, fiddle, steel guitar, fife [and] yodeling voice,” to name just a few. Randall adds that these qualities aren’t a litmus test, but “a likeness test. It’s a way to educate your ears and your eyes. Is there Blackness you have refused to see and hear?”

Randall’s songs have been recorded by artists Glen Campbell, Radney Foster and Justin McBride. Trisha Yearwood scored a number one hit with Randall’s song, co-written with Matraca Berg, “XXX’s and OOO’s.” Yet, as she writes, “I had been so whitewashed out of [my songs], the racial identity of my living-in-song heroes and sheroes so often erased.” Randall devotes a portion of My Black Country to documenting the recording of an album released at the same time as the book, featuring Randall’s songs as reimagined by her “posse of Black Country genius,” which includes, among others, Marks, Giddens, Russell and Randall’s daughter, Caroline Randall Williams.

My Black Country is a landmark book and an essential starting point for conversations about the nature of country music. It is true that mainstream dialogue comes late in country’s history, but coupled with Cowboy Carter, My Black Country feels right on time.

Alice Randall’s brilliant genealogy of Black country music, My Black Country, is both long overdue and, thanks to Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, right on time.

Fiction, Literary Fiction

The Spoiled Heart

Review by Matthew Jackson

by Matthew Jackson

Some writers have a gift for making ordinary lives as compelling as anything you’d find in an epic adventure. This ability to chart the human condition goes beyond technical proficiency or what we’d generally consider literary merit. Sunjeev Sahota has this gift, and his latest novel, The Spoiled Heart, wrings maximum emotional impact out of a seemingly unremarkable life.

The Spoiled Heart centers on Nayan, a working-class man living in England who was devastated by a tragic loss two decades earlier. Ever since, Nayan has thrown himself into his union, and into caring for his aging father. He’s never wanted much of a romantic life, until the standoffish and oddly beguiling Helen Fletcher returns to town. Nayan finds himself drawn to Helen, even as she seems determined to push him away, and as a union election threatens to consume his world. What draws Nayan to Helen? What drives him to keep pushing, both for her and for success as a union leader? What makes a man like Nayan tick?

These are the questions that Sahota’s narrator, an acquaintance and eventual friend of Nayan’s, sets out to answer, and it’s through this narrator’s eyes that the particular brilliance of The Spoiled Heart becomes clear. By framing Nayan’s story through the eyes of another storyteller, Sahota digs deep into the psyche of his protagonist, while asking provocative questions about whose story this really is and how much of it is true. There’s an element of voyeurism that lends something thrilling and incisive to the whole story.

Sahota’s prose is as precise, confident and startlingly wise when describing the depths of tragedy as the banalities of a transaction in a local shop. Nayan’s internal life, as a broken man who’d rather fix others than himself, is rendered in powerful, stealthily profound sentences, and all the while it’s accompanied by the sense that the author is building to something bigger, darker and more revelatory. When Sahota finally reaches that moment in The Spoiled Heart‘s final pages, it feels both shattering and strangely inevitable.

The Spoiled Heart is one of those books that will take root quickly and grow in your soul. It’s another powerful achievement for Sahota, and a novel that even readers who are leery of contemporary realism will enjoy.

Sunjeev Sahota’s The Spoiled Heart wrings maximum emotional impact out of a seemingly ordinary life, with an element of voyeurism that lends something thrilling and incisive to the narrative.

Family Drama, Fiction, Literary Fiction

Fiction Literary Fiction Family Drama

The Alternatives

Review by Freya Sachs

by Freya Sachs

Caoilinn Hughes’ third novel, The Alternatives, follows four sisters, all doctors of various sorts. When one of the four goes missing, the others set out across the Irish countryside to find her.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and general global instability in the background, the Flattery sisters have a lot to navigate. Haunted by their childhood and the early death of their parents, they all feel isolated and alone, each finding her way in the world as a single woman in her 30s. When the oldest sister, Olwen, goes missing, the other three come together on a quest to find her. In the process, they discover more of who they are, the values they share and how they can connect.

While all four sisters are concerned with the future of the Earth, each has her own particular sphere of expertise: cooking, philosophy, geology and politics. They also share a concern about the patterns within their family history. Each sister’s voice is clear, purposeful, realistic and hopeful. When the sisters come together, The Alternatives becomes even more engaging as their stories overlap, growing increasingly complex and intertwined.

The prose is strong, with narrative shifts that allow the reader both internal and external access to these women and their concerns. A true strength of the novel is the way Hughes balances ordinary details with those that surprise and raise the stakes, keeping the reader hooked.

In Caoilinn Hughes’ The Alternatives, the Flattery sisters have a lot to navigate. When the oldest, Olwen, goes missing, the other three come together on a quest to find her.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

Terrible Horses

Review by Sara Beth West

by Sara Beth West

Celebrated Deaf poet Raymond Antrobus originally resisted the idea of writing children’s books because of what he called “snobbery” in a 2021 interview with The Guardian. Thankfully, Antrobus came to see the immense importance of these stories, and released a tremendous debut picture book, Can Bears Ski? Readers will delight at his latest offering, Terrible Horses, which features a protagonist with hearing aids who fights with his older, much cooler sister.

The picture book form is a wonderful vehicle for Antrobus’ poetry, which shines through each lovely line in the use of poetic devices such as alliteration and repetition. Despite these higher-level literary elements, the narrative is instantly relatable, conveying the tensions of sibling rivalry and all the associated emotions. Declarative sentences combine to form poetic yet authentically childlike stanzas that sing. Though Terrible Horses is not overtly about the Deaf experience, Antrobus provides thoughtful and gentle representation by expressing the little brother’s unique type of isolation.

Ken Wilson-Max’s whimsical mixed media illustrations unite with Antrobus’ careful word choice to show the explosiveness of the siblings’ fights and the healing power of words as the protagonist retreats to write “stories about terrible horses” in which he is a lonely little pony “that can’t compete / that can’t speak / that can’t sleep.” These stories comfort the young narrator, but they also serve to heal the sibling relationship once his sister reads them and starts to better understand her little brother. The energy of Wilson-Max’s colorful line drawing enhances this rich story, creating the perfect combination for children and their caregivers and storytellers.

Ken Wilson-Max’s whimsical mixed media illustrations unite with Raymond Antrobus’ careful word choice to show the explosiveness of fights between siblings and the healing power of words.

Fiction, Literary Fiction

Fiction Literary Fiction

Sing, I

Review by Lauren Bufferd

by Lauren Bufferd

A violent crime threatens the stability of the middle-class wife and mother at the center of Ethel Rohan’s Sing, I, a thoughtful novel about self-discovery and new beginnings.

Ester Prynn’s mother chose her name in the hopes of making her unforgettable. Ester lives with her husband, Simon, and their two teenage boys in coastal Northern California. Though amicable, the marriage has lost whatever spark it once had, and their younger son is so obsessed with video games he barely comes out of his room. On top of that, Ester’s father has advanced dementia, and she is estranged from her brothers, who remained in Montana after their mother’s death.

When a masked gunman robs the convenience store where Ester works, assaulting both her and her coworker, Crystal, Ester is badly shaken. She quits the store and gets another job as a hostess in an upscale hotel restaurant. Friends encourage her to pursue forgotten interests like singing, but she is haunted by her frustration that the gunman is still free and continuing to commit acts of violence. She’s also troubled by her unexpected attraction to Allie, a manager at the restaurant. Though Ester has long fantasized about an escape, are these feelings worth imploding her life over?

The strength of Sing, I is its focus on the ordinary and the relatable. Ester is a middle-class woman with close friends, but also beholden to her family and trapped in a low wage job. The robbery jumpstarts her out of her stupor and into the role of an active participant in her life. Other characters also struggle with the hardships of starting over, addiction and life’s disappointments.

Though it treads a predictable path, Sing, I nonetheless offers a gentle reminder of the hard-earned growth that can emerge from disruption and change.

In Ethel Rohan’s Sing, I, when a masked gunman robs the convenience store where Ester works, she is pushed to reexamine what she wants from life.

Children's, Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book Children's

Signs of Hope

Review by Callie Ann Starkey

by Callie Ann Starkey

Signs of Hope, the Revolutionary Art of Sister Corita Kent presents readers with the life and art of nun, teacher and artist Sister Corita Kent. Written from the perspective of one of her many students, this vibrant picture book biography depicts the lessons Sister Corita taught about art and the world around us, encouraging her students to see “what everyone else sees, but doesn’t see.” Sister Corita taught the art of the ordinary, found in street signs, billboards and signs at the grocery store. To her, these things are art!

From her messy and exciting classroom, Sister Corita encourages her students to think outside the box when drawing. With Sister Corita, there is no right or wrong way: There is just art. Always calm and busy, she gathers words clipped from magazines, excited to see what these words might be arranged to say. With her bold works, Sister Corita both celebrates and marches for peace and justice during the anti-Vietnam war movement, and the world begins to notice this “revolutionary nun.”

Mara Rockliff’s text is clever and thoughtful. Caldecott Honor recipient Melissa Sweet uses watercolor, collage and mixed media in colorful artwork that is bold and richly layered, taking inspiration from Sister Corita’s own pop art. Quotes from Sister Corita and quotes she herself found inspiring are interspersed among the illustrations. As this book culminates, the student narrator charges us all to share what we have learned with others. With this final appeal, the handwritten quotes transition to words from Sister Corita’s former students: “She didn’t teach us how to draw or paint so much as she taught us to care.”

Together, writer and artist have created a beautiful book reminding us all “to make art all our lives and to make our lives ART,” just as Sister Corita taught. Signs of Hope is a dynamic and inspiring book for art lovers everywhere.

With thoughtful text from Mara Rockliff and bold artwork from Melissa Sweet, Signs of Hope is a dynamic and inspiring book for art lovers everywhere.

Children's, Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade Children's

Poetry Comics

Review by Norah Piehl

by Norah Piehl

In some ways, Grant Snider’s Poetry Comics is exactly what you’d expect—a series of short narratives that combine lyrical words with cartoons. But in almost every other way, this collection manages to surprise readers at each turn of the page.

Poetry Comics is loosely structured around seasons of the year, beginning in spring with tadpoles and leafing trees, and wrapping up in winter with snowfall and the boredom of being stuck indoors. But not all the topics of Snider’s poems—which are mostly in free verse but include some rhyming verses—are seasonal in nature. Many are introspective, touching on personal growth and the creative process in ways that will resonate with readers of various ages: “Maybe a moment is a taste— / a pickle’s sour crunch. / If only there were a way / to put it on paper / I could capture a moment / in all its wild power.” A recurring exploration of “How to Write a Poem” addresses frustration and revision before reaching a joyful conclusion.

Most of the poems include one or two figures leaping acrobatically through panels, often interacting with birds, insects, plants, trees and other elements of the natural world. The pen-and-ink illustrations, colored and edited digitally, span a gorgeous range of pastel and more saturated hues (on display to particularly great effect in “Poem for Painting My Room”). At times, the artwork is more conceptual, as in “Best Friends,” which visualizes a friendship via shapes in two different colors, or “Shape Story,” whose creative panel structure might prompt readers to think not only about what makes a poem but about how comics are constructed.

That may be the greatest value of Snider’s creativity-infused collection: Young readers and aspiring creatives who might be daunted by the prospect of writing a traditional poem or drawing a full graphic novel will find in these pages dozens of new models for, as Snider puts it, helping “say things / I never knew were in me.”

Grant Snider’s Poetry Comics are often introspective, touching on personal growth and the creative process in ways that will resonate with readers of various ages.

Cookbooks, Food & Drink, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Food & Drink Cookbooks

Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice

Review by Yi Jiang

by Yi Jiang

Often, cookbooks languish on our kitchen shelves, only to be referenced once in a blue moon—but the exuberant illustrations of Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice: A Thai Comic Book Cookbook will have you turning to its recipes for years to come. In 2020, Thai Belgian cartoonist Christina de Witte sought to further connect with her Thai heritage by taking language lessons, which is how she met Mallika Kauppinen, who started teaching Thai via Zoom after moving to Finland from Thailand. The result is this unique cookbook, in which cartoon versions of de Witte and Kauppinen lead you through the fundamentals of Thai cooking and an array of common recipes whose steps are whimsically drawn out. Tools, ingredients, stirring guidelines, timers, heat levels and more are diagrammed in a manner that provides both joy and exceptional clarity unmatched by most cookbooks.

Short comics offer context—the origin of guay tiaw, or “boat noodles,” for example—or pull you into a slice of Kauppinen’s childhood. Our guides are present throughout, drawn onto photos of their meals—floating in a pool of curry, grabbing fistfuls of rice and engaging in other such hijinks. From the liveliness of its writing to the brightness of its color palette, the vibrancy of every aspect of Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice captures Thai cuisine in such a way that you can almost taste its bold flavors just through reading.

With its vibrant illustrations, Noodles, Rice, and Everything Spice captures Thai cuisine in such a way that you can almost taste its bold flavors.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Icarus

Review by Mariel Fechik

by Mariel Fechik

For many years, Icarus Gallagher has slipped into the dangerous Mr. Black’s mansion on opportune nights to steal priceless artworks and replace them with perfect forgeries created by Icarus’ father, Angus. Their strange mission is one of revenge: Mr. Black hurt Angus’ family, and so Angus has spent almost two decades trying to hurt Mr. Black.

As a consequence of his father’s obsession, Icarus lives a half-life devoid of any real connection. At 17, he only has a year before he can leave and never see Angus again. Until then, he’ll keep his head down.

Except one night, Icarus is caught by Helios, Mr. Black’s teenage son. While he originally appears to be a threat that could expose Icarus, the two soon form a tentative friendship—and then something more intense. For Icarus, a boy made of want, it’s almost more than he can bear. But his connection with the broken, golden Helios might prove to be the key to freedom for both of them.

K. Ancrum’s extraordinary fifth novel Icarus is an elegant, multifaceted gem about art, power and fear. Ancrum performs a confident high-wire act in balancing the weighty manifestations of these themes alongside those of connection, desire and contradiction.

Icarus—book and boy—is the embodiment of raw yearning, and all of Ancrum’s characters wear their hearts on the tips of their tongues. Occasionally the book’s dialogue can feel unrealistic or even overwrought, showing an honesty and openness not necessarily common among 17-year-old boys. But there is an intimate truth in the intensity of feeling behind their words, and this is one of Ancrum’s greatest skills as a writer.

“Some of us lead lives that would require suspension of belief from others,” Ancrum writes in the novel’s dedication. Perhaps she references the unreality of a teenaged art thief who tends ferns and scales buildings, but maybe she’s simply talking about the unreality of everyday injuries and ecstasies: the cold rage of abuse; the emptiness of grief; the rapturous beauty and agony of being touched.

Ancrum’s prose is also thrillingly decadent in certain moments, channeling the masterpieces of art whose power she telegraphs through every page. Often sudden bluntness, either of sentence length or metaphor, gives an edge to the gilded phrasing. In Ancrum’s novel, Icarus’ wings striving for the heat of the sun becomes both a beautiful representation of queer love and a sharp, artful subversion of the original Greek mythos.

In her extraordinary fifth novel, Icarus, K. Ancrum performs a confident high-wire act, balancing the weighty manifestations of connection, desire and contradiction.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

How Do I Draw These Memories?

Review by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

In her creative and contemplative debut How Do I Draw These Memories?: An Illustrated Memoir, Jonell Joshua reflects on the people, places and events that helped her become the person—and artist—she is today.

An interesting pastiche of illustrative styles give this mixed-media memoir a scrapbook-like feel, and Joshua’s artistic range is on full display in painterly full-page pieces, expertly drawn black-and-white comics and colorful, vibrant illustrations. Through the inclusion of photographs of prominent figures in her life, Joshua also illuminates the ways in which others’ perspectives can become woven into our own.

The author’s childhood years were peripatetic: After Joshua’s father’s death when she was very young, she moved with her mother and brothers to her grandparents’ home in Savannah, Georgia. She and her brothers also lived with their other grandparents in New Jersey while her mother sought treatment for bipolar disorder. The author notes, “I envied the schoolmates who’d grown up together. . . . I kept tabs on how many [schools] I’d gone to. It was like a game I played in my head. Five elementary schools, four middle schools, one high school.”

While How Do I Draw These Memories? begins with the author’s earliest memories and ends approximately in the present, the memoir moves back and forth chronologically in between, resulting in a reading experience that’s more akin to an assemblage. As Joshua moves from state to state, school to school, her memoir also switches between narrators and storytelling styles—straightforward prose, Q&A format, illustrated narratives, etc.

Additional insight is offered via sections like the informative and empathetic “Bipolar Disorder—From My Perspective” and a detailed chronicle of her path from post-high school uncertainty to where she is today: an illustrator whose clients include the New York Times, CRWN Magazine, and NPR; and someone whose memories remind her that “The moments of joy I felt growing up . . . felt immeasurable. The love I was raised with is the love I carry with me.”

An interesting pastiche of illustrative styles give How Do I Draw These Memories? a scrapbook-like feel. Jonell Joshua’s artistic range is on full display in painterly full-page pieces, expertly drawn black-and-white comics and colorful, vibrant illustrations.

Medicine, Memoir, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Memoir Medicine

Committed

Review by Carla Jean Whitley

by Carla Jean Whitley

Writing saved Janet Frame’s life.

In 1951, the 27-year-old writer was scheduled for a lobotomy. She’d spent her adulthood in psychiatric facilities, and the extremely damaging practice was in its heyday. But after Frame’s debut book won a literary award, a doctor called off the procedure.

Frame is one of many authors Suzanne Scanlon references to create a throughline between reading, writing and illness in her memoir, Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen. Here, the author of novels Promising Young Women and Her 37th Year, an Index, traces her entwined reading and mental health histories.

In her early 20s, Scanlon spent more than two years in a psychiatric hospital and experienced shorter hospitalizations for several years to follow. Both during that first stint and the years since, she’s turned to books for insight into the world and her own mental health, a practice mirrored in her childhood. When her mother was dying, 8-year-old Scanlon created order from the grief and chaos around her through imaginative play. The immersive nature of this coping strategy is akin to what Scanlon now finds in literature.

Committed leaps across time, mirroring how Scanlon comes to understand her own narrative, organizing an unconventional timeline from her fragmented memories. She also plays with form, occasionally breaking from running narrative with lists explaining her illness, or switching from first- to second-person to place the reader in a scene.

Committed is also about authors who faced mental illness, among them Marguerite Duras and Sylvia Plath. Janet Frame, Scanlon writes, is “the patron saint of writers once institutionalized, the long-institutionalized, the young women everywhere told they were hopeless, what would become of them now, defined by the places where they lived.”

“What we call mental illness is so rarely portrayed with any depth or complexity,” Scanlon writes. But as she combs the archives of her reading, she finds “information about what it means to be alive in [any] shifting historical moment.” By lacing her story with literary analysis and cultural history, she creates a thoughtful reflection on how societal expectations can impact people, women in particular, and how writing and reading can provide a port in the storm.

In her stirring memoir, Committed, Suzanne Scanlon tracks her entwined reading and mental health histories.

Cozy Mystery, Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Mystery Cozy Mystery

Close to Death

Review by Jamie Orsini

by Jamie Orsini

In Close to Death, the fifth installment of his meta Hawthorne and Horowitz mystery series, Anthony Horowitz delivers another diabolically complex whodunit, rife with misdirection and murder.

When an obnoxious resident of the ritzy and otherwise close-knit Riverside Close neighborhood is murdered, law enforcement officials are puzzled. The remaining residents of the luxury community immediately close ranks—they all had motive to kill the unlikable Giles Kenworthy. So London officials call on former detective-turned-private investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his partner, John Dudley, to solve the sensational crime. Within weeks, the case is closed. Five years later, writer Anthony Horowitz is getting desperate. He’s written four crime novels with Hawthorne, mostly by following the prickly detective and chronicling his work. Now though, Horowitz has a looming publishing deadline for their next book, but the pair haven’t solved a case in months. He asks Hawthorne to revisit the already-solved Kenworthy case for an easy-to-write, ready-made mystery. But Hawthorne withholds almost as much information as he shares, and Horowitz realizes there’s much more to this case.

Horowitz (the real-life writer, not the character in his books) is a master of intricately plotted and deeply satisfying mysteries, and Close to Death is no exception. This fifth installment in the Hawthorne and Horowitz series is structured very differently than the previous works: Rather than having the fictional Horowitz follow Hawthorne’s sleuthing in real time, the pair are reviewing a long-closed case. Still, Horowitz is in the dark for much of the novel, trying to make sense of Hawthorne’s brief recaps and terse explanations. Horowitz is also deeply curious about Dudley, Hawthorne’s previous assistant. Why did the pair stop working together? Did it have something to do with the Kenworthy murder? Readers will enjoy following Horowitz as he works to unravel the many mysteries that surround this particular case.

Close to Death offers a supremely engrossing and expertly plotted mystery that will challenge and delight even the most well-read mystery fans. Suspects include two former nuns, a celebrity dentist, a landscaper and a chess champion, all of whom have secrets to hide. The clues are there for readers to find, hidden in this Agatha Christie-style mystery. This installment may be the strongest book yet in the superb series.

Close to Death offers a supremely engrossing and expertly plotted whodunit that will challenge and delight even the most well-read mystery fans.

History, Nonfiction

Nonfiction History

Chamber Divers

Review by Anne Bartlett

by Anne Bartlett

June 1939: British naval sub HMS Thetis sinks in sea trials. Ninety-nine people die. August 1942: Allied forces raid the coastal town of Dieppe in German-occupied France. Thousands are killed, captured or wounded, in part because coastal scouting was minimal. September 1942: British-manned torpedoes attack German battleship Tirpitz. All crewmen are captured or killed. Catastrophes have a way of concentrating the mind: Do it right next time. Luckily for the Allies in World War II, a group of scientists in London risked their lives in secret pressure chamber “dives” to give future underwater and amphibious missions better odds.

Author Rachel Lance is a biomedical engineer and blast injury specialist who has worked on underwater equipment for the U.S. Navy, making her unusually suited to unveil the forgotten story of these scientists in Chamber Divers: The Untold Story of the D-Day Scientists Who Changed Special Operations Forever.

Their project at University College London was led by J.B.S. Haldane, a brilliant, annoying eccentric who hired scientists shunned by others, among them Jewish refugees, women and Communist sympathizers. As the bombs in the Blitz exploded around them, these scientists subjected themselves again and again to dangerous pressure in chambers that simulated deep underwater dives in order to design more effective breathing equipment for submarine crews, frogmen and torpedo riders.

Relying on their experiment notes, Lance takes us inside the metal tubes where scientists suffered life-threatening injuries. She explores their backgrounds and relationships, which included a love affair between Haldane and research colleague Helen Spurway. And she ranges throughout combat zones to show us the dangers of underwater action, from the perspective of individual combatants on both sides. But Lance’s singular strength is her lucid explanations of the complex science behind the experiments, making it accessible to untrained readers. Lance also uncovers the combination of official secrecy, prejudice against outsiders and bureaucratic skullduggery that obscured this story until now.

Lance begins her book with the Dieppe disaster and ends with D-Day—an Allied triumph that might have gone badly wrong without the chamber divers’ dedication and resilience. Chamber Divers is a necessary reminder that not all war heroes were on the front lines.

In Chamber Divers, Rachel Lance uncovers the Navy scientists who risked their lives to improve the odds of underwater and amphibious missions in World War II.

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