It's more than a year after the Allies declared victory, and the people of Great Britain are still facing the lingering privations of wartime: rationing and shortages, combined with an unusually harsh winter and the losses of loved ones. Princess Elizabeth's engagement to Prince Philip of Greece gives England's citizenry a celebration to look forward to. For the coterie of seamstresses working under London designer Norman Hartnell, it means something else: a once-in-a-lifetime chance to work on Elizabeth's wedding gown.
Novelist Jennifer Robson (Moonlight over Paris, Goodnight from London) stitches together the story of The Gown through the narratives of two seamstresses: the young Englishwoman Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, a French refugee who becomes Ann's colleague and friend. Woven throughout is the story of Heather Mackenzie, Ann's Canadian granddaughter, who inherits a box of elaborate embroidered flowers after her grandmother's death. Puzzled and intrigued by the flowers, which bear a striking resemblance to those on Queen Elizabeth's wedding gown, Heather hops a plane to London to trace the mystery of her grandmother's life and career.
Robson constructs her narrative with the skill and precision displayed by Ann and Miriam as they work on the gown. All three protagonists are dealing with loss and heartbreak. Ann is still mourning her brother and her parents, who died during the war. Miriam carries the trauma of her family's deaths and her own experiences at Ravensbrück. Heather's grief over losing Ann is compounded by being laid off from her magazine job, and her gradual realization that her beloved "Nan" had an entire life in England that she never shared. The plot shifts among the three characters' perspectives, tying together the postwar timeline with Heather's present-day quest to uncover Ann's history.
A historian by training, Robson embroiders the novel with the finer points about fabric, beads and other materials used to create the gown, as well as the tight veil of secrecy drawn around its design process. She richly draws the struggles of wartime characters, especially the two seamstresses and a big-hearted journalist who becomes important to Miriam. Heather's story feels less vivid at times, but her journey to London helps illuminate the connections between Ann, Miriam, the box of fabric flowers and Miriam's later career as a textile artist. Like the gown itself and the tapestries Miriam creates, Robson's novel stitches together disparate components into an elegant whole. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Jennifer Robson's fifth historical novel unfurls the story of Queen Elizabeth's wedding gown and the women who made it.