By Liz Soares
When we meet Roberta Pietrykowski, she is living a quiet life in a quiet English town, alone with her cat, and working in a quirky bookstore. She seems to have no ambition; she even got her job by happenstance.
As she says of a new employee: “Jenna was never exactly interviewed. Like me, she walked into the Old and New as a customer; like me, she was engaged in conversation and offered a job.”
But Roberta does enjoy the Old and New Bookshop, especially when she finds letters, cards and photos tucked into the used volumes.
One day, her father brings in a suitcase that once belonged to his mother. It is filled with books he wants to pass on. The valise is mysteriously labeled with the name “Mrs. D. Sinclair.” Who was she?
When Roberta finds a letter in the case, the mystery deepens. What is she to make of a letter written by her grandfather in 1941, when he supposedly died in the Blitz a year before? Why is he telling her grandmother he can’t marry her?
Roberta wants to know, but her family can’t help. Her father has terminal cancer, her mother deserted them long ago, her grandfather died during World War II, and her grandmother, a frail 108 years old, is in a nursing home.
Readers, however, have the advantage of following Dorothy’s story, which alternates chapters with Roberta’s. Both are remarkably alike—passive on the surface, but full of passion. Roberta and Dorothy appear to be conventional, maybe even boring. But neither is afraid to live life on her own terms.
Dorothy fled her wealthy but controlling mother to marry Albert, a crude farmhand. When she is unable to bear him a child due to miscarriages and a stillbirth, their marriage sours.
The war begins, and Bert signs up. Dorothy, relieved that he’s gone, is designated laundress for the farms tied to the estate, and is directed to share her cottage with two “Land Girls.” These were women who came to the country to do the agricultural work that men, now away at war, had done.
Dorothy’s maternal instincts are strong, and she finds comfort in caring for the petite and pretty Aggie and large, rough Nina. But she still mourns the children she lost, and when a fighter plane crashes in her yard, she runs toward it, hoping to be engulfed by the flames.
Instead, she is hailed as a hero. The pilot was part of a group of Poles working with the British, and the squadron leader, Jan Pietrykowski, comes to the cottage to thank Dorothy and give her the gift of a gramophone.
This is the first in a series of events that will change Dorothy’s life forever.
The book, in its own quiet but powerful way, is a page-turner. Roberta’s life is nowhere near as dramatic as her grandmother’s, but she, at least, finds happiness in the end.
This is Louise Walters’ first book, and she has done a skillful job of slowly revealing the two women. Letters are motifs, from the ones Roberta finds in books, to those Jan and Dorothy write to one another. And, yes, even an e-mail exchange figures in the story.
Both settings are intriguing. Walters paints a vivid picture of wartime Britain, with its blackout curtains and rationing; villagers ride bicycles and hold dances for the soldiers. Roberta’s work in the bookstore is an enviable situation for bibliophiles.
Reading Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a cozy experience, but not a vacuous one. Dorothy is a remarkable woman, and her story is unforgettable.
