Author : Tracy Chevalier
Narrators : Fenella Woolgar
Genre : Historical
Publisher : Penguin Audio
Listening Length : 10 hours 51 minutes
Rating : 4/5
Narrator Rating : 5/5
I’ve read two of Tracy Chevalier’s books before – Remarkable Creatures about young fossil hunter Mary Anning, and Girl With a Pearl Earring. I have liked both. Chevalier’s main characters often are women, women who don’t want to/can’t abide by society’s rules. Out of need or necessity, they pick their own path, choosing interesting vocations or hobbies – which Chevalier describes in great detail and are a pleasure to read about. She has a way of writing which builds characters with depth. We know who they are, what they think and how they might behave.
In A Single Thread, 38 year old spinster Violet Speedwell has moved out of her carping mother’s house and come away to be a single woman in the town of Winchester, penury-ridden though that existence might be. Pragmatic Violet knows that she is regarded as a “surplus” woman, and will probably remain single after the death of her fiancé in the Great War, dependent upon her mother and brother. Her initial loneliness is lessened when she comes across the broderer community of the local Winchester Cathedral, a group of women who volunteer their time to embroider and make kneelers – cushions which church-goers use to make the hard stone benches a little more comfortable during time spent in the church.
Typist by day and borderer now, in her free time, Violet makes new friends – Gilda, Dorothy and Arthur (the bell-ringer). She finds comfort in her new found friends, and is finally finding a place and a life for herself. Her new found independence brings other changes – she tries a walking vacation all by herself, which is unusual for the times. Little by little her non-traditional life begins to sort itself out. She already has convictions; now she gains the courage to go with them.
A Single Thread is a marvelous read. I liked Violet Speedwell. She is an interesting, sympathetic protagonist, and her story with its difficulties and dilemmas is arresting. Narrator Fenella Woolgar is superb and a pleasure to listen to. Highly recommended.
