As a ‘surplus’ woman in an England still reeling fourteen years after the 1918 end of The Great War in which two-million young men of her generation were wiped away, Violet Speedwell struggles to find any trace of meaning or purpose in her life. Brother, fiancé and father all dead, mother an intolerably-abusive emotional wreck and her opportunities deeply constrained by gender, custom and the dearth of even marginally-desirable suitors, her only sense of achievement comes from having moved-out to a boarding house room in the next city and managing to live on her own, though that living is marginal at best. Desperate nostalgia for the warmth of child-time church visits (one possible interpretation of the novel’s title) leads her to discover ‘the Broderers,’ a group of women engaged in embroidering new soft goods for Winchester Cathedral. It is that encounter which allows her to forge some tenuous personal connections and so drives this totally-engaging and moving tale.

This is necessarily a narrow tale, as Violet’s life is limited by circumstance and prejudices, yet the author uncovers sensuality in a hungry woman’s reactions to food and drink, entrepreneurialism in others’ efforts to survive when their jobs are lost to bigotry, and even a range of sexuality. The illicit love of two women is treated with empathy and honor, making clear that it is love for its own sake (‘their own sakes’?) not just a make-do for the lack of eligible men, as some of their compatriots rationalize it. Violet’s own romance, a sparse affair with a married man devoted to caring for a wife tormented by the wartime death of their only son, is doomed in most senses, yet still nurtures them both in important respects, even before it produces the slender thread of permanent connection that restores meaning to each of them and to the novel’s title.

Along the way we learn about embroidery bell-ringing and church customs, and are reminded of how material our modern lives have become as we see Violet live with barely more than a suitcase-full of possessions. We also discover real artistic ambition and achievement in women (the actual historical figure of  Miss Louisa Pesel, in particular) whom we might otherwise dismiss as slaves to convention, decoration and rote following of recipe.

More than any of Chevalier’s earlier novels, this one opened my eyes to what she is really doing, correcting the lack of female figures in familiar moments of cultural history by novelizing them through a female point of view. From the tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn, to the paintings of Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring, the writings of Wm. Blake in Burning Bright and the discoveries of Darwin and early fossil hunters in Remarkable Creatures, Chevalier illustrates that women were present and integral to the work for which men have been so lauded. Not only that, but those women’s contributions were made under duress and restrictions far greater than the men ever faced.

Each volume entertains and enlightens at the same time they serve, both singly and as a body, that very worthwhile social purpose. Brava, Ms. Chevalier, brava.