A Woman of No Importance

I’ll admit it. My book selections are sometimes based on their cover or their title. Most of those times, I don’t even read the blurb to validate my choice. I regret the faith I put in the artwork or word-smithing some of the time. A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell was the latest read selected by this very method. I don’t often dive into the non-fiction realm. A habit I have been trying to break recently. My interest in a biography is rarely piqued by the title/cover art, but I had an Amazon Kindle credit to spend, and I was off.

Virginia Hall is Purnell’s subject in her latest biography. The name wasn’t familiar to me. I’m guessing you don’t know the name either. Was she someone’s wife? Daughter? Yes, she was a wife and a daughter, but that’s not her claim to fame. She was a woman raised with the expectation of making a good marriage. Virginia was an aspiring diplomat, an avid sportswoman, and far from interested in convention. Hall was in the right place at the wrong time. She became a pioneer in the clandestine field of espionage during World War Two.

Purnell reconstructed Hall’s life and the atmosphere surrounding events skillfully, capturing the high stakes game Hall was running in the “free zone” of France during the early years of World War Two. Audiences are given a different view of the sequence of events in Europe than what you typically get in a classroom. As a student, you are given names, dates, and places. Purnell takes the time and sets the reader up to be in the streets of Vichy France along with Hall, painting a gritty, realistic picture rather than clinical exposition. I’m pretty sure they omitted scabies and the black market for soap in school.

If Virginia’s story and stories of others like her were brought into school, kids might pay more attention in history class. The war years were compelling and suspenseful, but there is more to be learned from Ms. Hall’s life. Purnell offers through Virginia a picture of the struggles women had breaking into the workplace. Hall endured countless hurtles throughout her career. She doubted herself and nearly gave up and sent herself home several times. In the end, though, she paved the way for victory over Germany and for the all the like-minded women coming up behind her.

I stopped reading at least three times to double and triple check that the book in my hands a biography and not historical fiction. My hesitation in believing an actual human being did all of these things doesn’t come from Hall being a woman. She operated in a deadly political atmosphere in a solitary and stressful profession. The cards would be stacked against anyone, regardless of gender. Hope and success against the steamrolling, destructive regime of the Nazi Party were in short supply for much of the 30s and 40s. Her level of accomplishment is rare things in the best of circumstances. Her story is an exciting lesson in the power of perseverance.

Biographies typically do not call to me from their perches on a bookshelf. This one, obviously, did. Hall’s struggles throughout her career resonated with me. Today, women have a lot more advantages than women did in the World War Two era, but there are still hurdles to be overcome. Her ability to feel the sting of rejection, but never let herself be pulled under by it is a lesson I still have to learn. Her story was a thrill to read. She was an extraordinary woman in extraordinary times.