Tags
1890s, archeology, Athens, book review, Clara Barton, classical learning, Cuba, feminism, Greco-Turkish War, historical atmosphere, historical fiction, Lauren Willig, nursing, pandering, predictable romance, romantic ideals, sexism, Spanish-American War
Review: Two Wars and a Wedding, by Lauren Willig
Morrow, 2023. 422 pp. $32
In September 1896, Betsy Hayes is in Athens, trying to break down the door barring women from participating in archeological digs. Fresh from college, where she received a solid education in the classics, Betsy has brains, passion, energy, and daring.
But these qualities don’t matter. Any young man at her institute, no matter how much less accomplished, has the male prerogative to dig for relics, work considered too strenuous and demanding for a lady—or that’s the excuse. And her professors don’t appreciate her insistence, hiding from her at every opportunity.
Meanwhile, Athens sweeps her away:
There were old ladies in rusty black with their heads veiled carrying straw baskets, and irritated donkeys laden with pallets, and the clothes, oh, the clothes! The men sported wide red sashes and baggy trousers and sometimes a sort of skirted garment. Athens was marvelous, with its antiquities jostling against the grand, modern marble mansions that had been erected in the past few decades, but this—this felt like Greece as she had imagined it.
But the surroundings can’t make up for her frustration. A professor asks why doesn’t Miss Hayes become a librarian? After all, the other female student intends just that. She also makes coffee, invoking the chestnut about catching flies with honey rather than vinegar.
Willig pairs this conflict, old as the hills yet up to date, with another, similar one. The only man who takes her seriously is a handsome Frenchman whose intentions are unclear—at least to Betsy. I don’t understand why every gracious, attractive, worldly man apparently skilled at seduction must be French—pandering to stereotypes among American readers—but I believe her attraction and the interplay. Less so the man himself, who has no serious flaws.
But the title of this novel, a dead giveaway, tells you that this flirtation isn’t the point. Rather, when Greece goes to war against Turkey, Betsy volunteers as a nurse. Never mind that she flunks her preparatory course—she’s never one to take deadlines or exams seriously—she pulls strings and gets sent into action. The Greek cause has fired her imagination, triumph seems inevitable, and she’ll perform heroics that will open the doors to her archeology career.
A while later in 1898, after various (mis)adventures, Betsy’s on her way to Cuba and another war, to work under Clara Barton. Along the way, she suffers a rift with her closest friend and college roommate, Ava, who’s got no more romance to her than a two-by-four and would be an excellent physician, if only the profession admitted women readily. But well-drawn a character as Ava is, I’m not sure why the two women are friends, and no scenes of back story show them together.
However, that’s a minor detail, and Two Wars and a Wedding has much going for it. Willig has an eye for issues, and where a lesser writer might pay lip service to them, she excavates, as her heroine would wish. Feminism is only one theme here. Time and again, the narrative invokes romantic ideals, whether of love, scientific endeavor and discovery, or war, and disillusions the characters who believe in them.
Exhibit A is the Spanish-American War, which Willig renders as a disorganized mess, exemplary for the commanders’ negligence and arrogance, for which the soldiers pay dearly. She introduces a fascinating sidelight I’d never heard of, that the Cuban revolutionaries didn’t want American troops fighting their war, only U.S. political recognition of their cause. Furthermore, the college boys who’ve enlisted to save Cuban women and children from Spanish cruelty are mistaken, Betsy believes—they’re not the real victims. So the whole shebang is a sham.
I like novels that are about something, as this one is. It also offers excellent descriptions of nursing stations, combat, and Cuba. The dialogue crackles, often, and I like the wit Willig displays, which further enlivens the narrative. Betsy’s an engaging, rounded character who makes tons of mistakes, and I also like a journalist whom she befriends and one of the soldiers. All three have edges and layers.
Call me cynical, but none of what I’ve described—except the French nobleman and Betsy’s attraction—makes a bestseller, so something has to give. (Consider the title, which removes any suspense.) That may or may not explain why, around page 260, the novel takes a sharp turn, offering a predictable romance or two and other unsurprising events. But it’s hard to ignore how these elements please the crowd. Is that because unpleasantness can’t dominate the story? Either way, much falls into place, maybe too neatly.
Nevertheless, Two Wars and a Wedding is worth reading, for its principal characters and the glimpse of history that may be unfamiliar.
Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.